Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

dakjets We have high expectations for British crime films. This one in my opinion lacks an investigation. Here's murder, and we expect a certain amount of investigation as the story is told. But it does not happen. No plot, or suspense. This causes the excitement to fail. Instead, we are witnessing a stylish film, performed in Paris's era. It's nicely filmed that way, but lacks any nerve we want to have when we watch great British crime on television.Rowan Atkinson shows that he can handle serious roles as well. Nothing to say about his efforts. Let's hope he gets something more to go after in the next episode, and with a plot that keep us on suspense.

newjersian Mister Bin as Maigret is already funny. The pathetic attempts of creators of that TV flop to make it look like happening in France, bring even more fun. Whoever watched the old French series with Jean Richard as Maigret, can easily imagine what George Simenon kept in mind while writing about the meticulous Parisian police detective. Maigret would never wear a typical British bowler hat. Maigret would never hold his famous pipe not for actually smoking it, but only to satisfy the script and director's request. Simenon's fans know that Maigret was a man of a temperament, and he would never act as a melancholic English gentleman. That's why the entire series looks like a boring parody.

dunfincin I was very disappointed with this. Atkinson is a brilliant comedy performer but not a serious actor. His performance here was just passable. I wonder how many fine British and dare I say it French actors were passed over to give him this opportunity. I just couldn't take him seriously. However no doubt if Hollywood had made this film it would have starred Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn so musn't really complain. The direction and production values were very good notwithstanding that the film was shot mostly in Budapest as you could tell when occasionally the camera would pan across a wall trying to evoke early post war Paris but instead showing us posters clearly written in Hungarian. What totally ruined the film for me was the decision to use primarily English actors with a variety of English accents. You would see portrayed a French bar and obviously great lengths had been taken to add a genuine air of authenticity so much so that you could almost smell the stale wine and the aroma of Gauloise cigarettes then someone would come in and order a "sous-citron" with an unmistakable mancunian accent.Very effective what Brecht called "Stimmungsbrechung" - mood breaking.Far better, I think, to have used French-speaking actors possibly with subtitles or at least some form of franglais a la Hercule Poirot. In fact, some of it was so ridiculous that it would only have needed Atkinson to roll his eyes or start mugging to camera and I would have fallen off my chair. I am ready to suspend a modicum of belief for the sake of drama but not my my entire intellect.

mikevonbach This film had some trouble with the story line .During the investigation questions were asked Of the mother and the maid that didn't match . If the family was behind several months in rent how did they have a maid . And why would the killer be loved by two women that he despised for so long. I don't think I have seen that kind of dysfunction on Jerry Springer . The writing fell apart halfway through this film .Because the movie was English everyone was so calm and reserved .The climatic ending was very soft something that should have happened midway Which would have left the movie opened for a truly explosive and more shocking end. No this was just a PAY the rent film . I wouldn't sit through another episode of this kind of story telling . But you can give the cinematographer and the lighting tech's a thumbs up they gave them a Beautiful visual Platform ,it just did not have the story or the direction to push it over the top .