“Luther: The Fallen Sun” (2023)
Everyone’s favoured James Bond is back!
Everyone’s favoured James Bond is back!
It was a long ago Christmas of many years past when, on a whim and as a festive gift to myself, I treated myself to the boxset of the first two seasons of Luther and without having previously seen a single second of the highly rated and loved BBC television series. Suffice to say I enjoyed what I saw in the opening two seasons but the following three came and went with much UK fanfare over the next six years and whilst I am still to see these more recent seasons, I couldn’t resist watching this big screen, feature length extension in the lore of Luther and whisper it, it’s very good indeed.
The elongated opening credits alone set the scene for the spectacle ahead as a blackmailer abducts their terrified prey leaving scant regard for the puzzle left behind let alone a distraught mother who begs “DCI John Luther” (Idris Elba) to do everything within his power to return her son home safe. A solemn promise is made, but before Luther can delve into the mysterious case he is immediately jailed on concocted and spurious charges and whilst rotting angrily away in a prison cell, the blackmailer springs a trap that leads to the unveiling of the first of many heinous and repugnant acts that follow. We as the audience are immediately aware of who the blackmailer is but this doesn’t lessen the suspense, more it opens the questions as to why or for whom and for what purpose as without him, DCI Odette Raine (Cynthia Erivo) and Luther’s former boss “Martin Schenk” (Dermot Crowley) can only scratch around for clues as they know little or “sweet fanny Adams” on the “parasite” now terrifying and plaguing the streets of London.
As per the film poster above, and to no-one’s spoiler surprise, DCI Luther is soon back on the streets of London or rather, as in the headline poster at the top of this article, a Batman avenging angel atop the skyscrapers that tower high into the English capital’s skyline. This is ever so slightly a misnomer or misdirection as whilst London remains the centrepiece of the battleground of a horrid bastard and his utterly despicable crimes, the action soon moves further afield for a brilliant snowbound northern European denouement whereby we see the real trail of human destruction being wrought in the name of dark web entertainment in a “Red Bunker”. Here there are echoes of a James Bond scene of the past together with arguably a nod to a Mission: Impossible scene of the past too, and together with the often constant rain and hints of Sado-Masochism, this also brought to mind the David Fincher film Se7en.
Unsurprisingly, I was immediately won over by this feature length dive into the life of DCI John Luther and together with the set piece action sequences in and around London as well as a heavily snowbound Norway, the performances of Idris Elba, Cynthia Erivo, Dermot Crowley and Andy Serkis (resplendent in a ridiculous wig!), I heartily recommend this to you.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
“Snow Falls” (2023)
Cold, empty snowbound non-horror.medium.com
“Skinamarink” (2022)
Hide and Seek in an upside down house of horrors.medium.com
“Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Worth every minute. Across every universe.medium.com