"Cracker" To Be a Somebody: Part 1 (1994)

Director:

Tim Fywell

Writer:

Jimmy McGovern (written and created by)

TV Series:

"Cracker" (1993)

Original Air Date:

10 October 1994 (Season 2, Episode 1)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

A working class man, distraught at the recent death of his father, impulsively becomes a skinhead and murders a Pakistani shopkeeper over a perceived insult.

Plot Keywords:

Skinhead | Pakistani | Xerox Machine | Cracker | Neo Nazi

Cast

  (Episode Cast overview, first billed only)

Robbie Coltrane	...	Dr. Eddie 'Fitz' Fitzgerald
Barbara Flynn	...	Judith Fitzgerald
Christopher Eccleston	...	DCI David Bilborough
Lorcan Cranitch	...	DS Jimmy Beck
Geraldine Somerville	...	DS Jane 'Panhandle' Penhaligon
Kieran O'Brien	...	Mark Fitzgerald
Colin Tierney	...	D.C. Bobby Harriman
Robert Carlyle	...	Albie Kinsella
Tracy Gillman	...	Jill Kinsella
Gemma Phoenix	...	Ruth
Dave Bond	...	Factory Supervisor
Martin Pearson	...	Factory Worker
Badi Uzzaman	...	Shahid Ali
Shango Baku	...	Gregson
Wil Johnson	...	D.C. Skelton (as Wilbert Johnson)

Runtime:

UK:148 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:15

Company:

A&E Television Networks

Quotes:

[Clare Moody has just printed a half-fabricated article about Shahid Ali's murder]
DCI David Bilborough: A Pakistani's killed in a racially sensitive area and you print a story like this?
Clare Moody: It's the truth.
DCI David Bilborough: And that makes everything OK?
Clare Moody: Yes.
DCI David Bilborough: No! Who gave you this information.
Clare Moody: I can't tell you.
DCI David Bilborough: Don't hide behind journalistic integrity: you've got none. Who gave you this information?
Clare Moody: I can't tell you.
DCI David Bilborough: It wasn't the bloke who found the body: I've just been to see him.
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Star Wars (1977)

Chilling, compelling: The "hero" as bad as the "villain"

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I'm not familiar with this television series, but watched the "To Be A Somebody" episode recently. It combined all the best elements of British crime drama: fantastic writing, spot-on acting, tight directing/editing, and a compelling story.

I think I'd prefer not to see it again.

The main focus of the plot from a traditional perspective is the downward spiral of a disaffected working class man, played brilliantly by Robert Carlyle. The parallel theme -- the one we're barely aware of until the end -- is the fact that our protagonist (played brilliantly by Robbie Coltrane) is already at the bottom of that spiral.

While mesmerized by the story, I also had a vague unease whilst viewing. It wasn't until another character calls Fitz "an emotional rapist" that I could identify what was disturbing me so profoundly.

We can understand and even sympathize with the twisted figure of Carlyle's murderer because we can see how an essentially good man can allow himself to be taken over, taken down, and destroyed from the inside out. We see him journey downward to his eventual destruction -- and we see that he doesn't really want to be that person. He would be someone else if he could just see *how.*

Coltrane's character, on the other hand, is rewarded for his sick violations of others' psyches. He is the man who walks free, who feels no remorse, and who views the consequences of his actions solely in terms of whether it will affect his job (i.e. his own self-aggrandizement). It was truly chilling to realize by the end that Fitz would suffer no consequences -- would never be charged with any crime -- would be allowed to walk free, terrorizing whomever he chose. And that he *enjoys* it.

Mesmerizing, compelling -- and I never want to see it again.