DALZIEL AND PASCOE: A CLUBBABLE WOMAN (1996)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2002
In Europe British television is widely considered to be the best television in the world and acronyms like BBC or ITN are synonym with professionalism and highest quality of programme. The best example for that could be found in British television dramas, especially those belonging to crime and mystery genre. Despite the lower budgets, absence of big stars and seemingly mundane plots, almost all of such shows are better acted, better written, better directed and more memorable than their American counterparts. Another great advantage of British crime shows comes from their format; unconstrained by the need to have twenty or more 42-minute episodes aired over the season, their authors are able to tell each single story in the form of 90-minute long TV-movie or full-blown mini-series of its own. This is especially convenient for the shows based on novels. Good example could be found in the series of novels written by Reginald Hill, later adapted in the series of TV-movies. The first among them was DALZIEL AND PASCOE: A CLUBBABLE WOMAN, directed in 1996 by Ross Devenish.
The first film in the series brings two protagonists together. Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (played by Warren Clarke) is an old-school policeman without formal education or good manners. Ambitious, young and university-educated Detective Sergeant Peter Pascoe (played by Colin Buchanan) has just been assigned to Dalziel's unit. Their first case revolves around local rugby club where Dalziel is vice-chairman. Sam Connen (played by Ralph Brown) is a player who had a really bad day - suffering nasty head injury during the game and finding his wife murdered in the evening. In order to find possible suspects and motive, Dalziel and Pascoe focus their investigation to the club discovering plenty of shady dealings and dirty laundry among their members.
Since this is the first TV-movie in the series, writer Alan Plater and director Devenish could have focused more attention to two protagonists and thus introduce their characters and backgrounds to the audience. Instead of that, they decided to leave characters' exposition to the future instalments of the series. The only exception was introduction of Ellie Soper, Pascoe's feminist girlfriend, played by Susannah Corbett. However, those scenes that don't deal with Dalziel's or Pascoe's personal lives are actually very interesting. The crime mystery itself isn't that important, but the setting itself - rugby club and whole subculture built around it - is enough to grab viewers' attentions, even for those who don't understand or care for the sport. The acting in the film is of variable quality - Warren Clarke, one of the most recognisable British character actors, is great in his role, while Colin Buchanan obviously struggles with the one-dimensionality of his character. The best performances belong to Ralph Brown and Steven Spiers in the memorable role of Conen's Welsh rival. Because of them, we empathise with the characters and all those who watch A CLUBBABLE WOMAN would be left with the impression that their story could work even without context of crime mystery. Yet, all those who want standard police procedural would have few reasons to be unsatisfied with this introduction to the series.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on October 7th 2002
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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