This review explores the moody and grim atmosphere of the new BBC series , based on AA Dhand's thriller novels. While praising the show's serious tone and departure from the typical 'cosy crime drama' formula, the review critiques its stoic lead character, pacing issues, and overall lack of fun.
There’s an old crime fiction cliché that a story’s setting is as much a character as any of its heroes and villains.
That platitude is celebrated with gusto in , a stylish yet joyless adaptation of AA Dhand’s bestselling thriller series about a tough guy cop fighting the good fight in noir(ish) Judging by a spectacularly gloomy first of six episodes, Bradford is a cross between Al Capone’s Chicago, Ridley Scott’s Moody drone shots portray the city centre as a warren of shadows and skullduggery; everyone talks like protagonists from a gumshoe novel. “You can’t do that – this is England!” gasps a minor villain at one point, as sulky hero Harry Virdee (Staz Nair, whose first screen appearance was a 2012 audition) subjects him to a brutal, off-the-books interrogation. “This is Bradford!” shoots back Virdee. Any similarity to the “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown” line from the Roman Polanski noir classic is presumably intentional.Virdee is a detective from a Sikh background, while his wife, Saima (Aysha Kala), is of Indian-Muslim heritage. Virdee’s father (Kulvinder Ghir) and others in his community cannot forgive him for crossing what they regard as a religious red line. That fact is made painfully clear when Saima is on the receiving end of a racial slur in an early scene set at a wedding (which goes on almost as long as the eternal nuptials at the beginning of It’s all a bit grim, and the bleak mood is reflected in the decision to have most of the action take place in the wee hours. At least bucks the recent trend of BBC shows unfolding at night being impossible to follow, so inky is the darkness. But there are other problems. A sequence in which Virdee chases a suspect down a train line has so much nauseating shaky-cam action that sensitive viewers may need a lie-down and a cold, damp cloth across the forehead. All good detective dramas live or die by their lead character, and huffing Virdee is a tad too stoic for his own good. He’s forever stomping around looking sad, and when he’s with Saima, he spends all his time gazing into her eyes and blubbing on about how much she means to him. It’s good that he cares, but they never convince as an actual couple who might do real couple things, such as falling asleep in front of the television. The series also suffers from pacing issues. Part one focuses on the search for a missing teenager and Virdee’s relationship with his brother-in-law, who just happens to be one of the biggest criminals in West Yorkshire – a fact our heroic copper has managed to keep secret. But then, at literally the last minute, it is revealed that there is a serial killer on the loose in Bradford. Just as the story shapeshifts into something more interesting, the credits roll. Why string us along for an entire 60 minutes? The thriller genre has been overwhelmed lately with cosy crime dramas, where the heroes are inevitably white and middle-class men, wisecracking while investigating horrific murders. is a welcome pushback against that trend – not just because its lead character is of South Asian heritage but also because it isn’t afraid to be grown up and serious. The show is ever aware of that. Yet for all its admirable qualities (and despite Nair’s committed performance), it forgets the most important lesson of all: that a thriller, no matter how grisly, should be fun, not glum
TV Review AA Dhand Thriller Detective Drama Bradford South Asian Representation Crime Drama
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