Pluskylang Great Film overall

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Leofwine_draca I've seen plenty of bad films in my time, and most of them have been enjoyable in some way, even if only a small one. So when I sat down to watch THE RIDDLE, I had no idea I was about to see one of the most poorly-conceived 'thrillers' of my life, a film that makes television detective series look like Hitchcock. I guess the fact that this film's 'world exclusive premiere' was as a FREEBIE on the front of the Daily Mail might have told me I was in for a rough ride, but even so THE RIDDLE is the pits, you won't see much worse than this.Where to lay the blame? I'd say at every door, pretty much. Director Brendan Foley makes a mess of the whole thing, leading me to suspect that he couldn't 'direct' his way out of a paper bag. The script is poor and the sub-plot involving Charles Dickens narrating a story is boring in the extreme – really, who thought having somebody read a story in scenes interspersed throughout the film would make good cinema? The modern day murder-mystery aspect is a jumbled mess, with no real inclination of who the dead are, why they're dead, and how Vinnie Jones' character has come to investigate. I could barely bring myself to sit through this and, even worse, it lasts for a mind-numbing TWO HOURS. That's two hours of your life you'll never get back, two hours of people talking, eating, occasionally shouting, and drinking in the pub.Obviously what little budget the film-makers had to hand was spent on the cast, because it's astonishingly good for a film of this calibre. Shakespearian actor Derek Jacobi obviously signed up because he got the chance to play Charles Dickens, but he only comes across as a pompous buffoon rather than anyone with weight behind him. Vinnie Jones is an actor I always like, but I was hard pressed to find anything impressive about him here – he's miscast as a journalist and should have stuck to his thuggish roles. There are a couple of attractive actresses in the cast, but they don't have much to work with. Elsewhere we get supporting roles and cameo appearances from the likes of Jason Flemyng (typecast as a bad guy but still the best thing in the movie), a wrinkly Vanessa Redgrave and P. H. Moriarty from The Long Good Friday, who serves to remind us just how GOOD a film shot in London's Docklands can be. Mel Smith's weird appearance is a highlight, if you can call it that.Minor fun can be had from spotting the wealth of errors present: these range from continuity blips (Jones getting the back of his shirt soaked, then, hey presto!, it's clean in the next scene) to more serious factual mistakes (Dickens in his house with modern-day radiators). But in the end, THE RIDDLE is an utterly boring, stupid film, a cheap cash-in on the success of THE DA VINCI CODE, and one to be avoided like the plague.

jack-upland The worst part of this is the story, which rapidly deteriorates from a partly promising premise to an abysmal end. Rather than making the main plot more interesting, the subplot involving Charles Dickens renders the narrative nonsensical. I think I know why those famous actors and actresses were involved: they are hacks who could sleepwalk through their parts and have been involved in enough good films that the occasional putrid offering doesn't matter. There could have been a good film in this, involving modern and Dickensian London, but that would involve an intelligent writer, which this script utterly lacked. The real "riddle" is why such a uninspired and uninspiring story idea ever was made into a film...

jacobw Let me admit up front: I know the guy who wrote and directed this movie. I like to think I can be objective about it nonetheless, but in an effort to counteract any bias I might feel, I'll try to base this review (and my rating above) on two fairly objective factors.First, take a look at the cast list: Vanessa Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, and Vinnie Jones. Think about how many movie offers each of them must have at any given moment. You don't get one actor like that (let alone three!) in a low-budget film made by an unknown unless they think there is something special in both the script and the director. Look, there's no reason you should care what I think about this movie--I'm just some anonymous guy on the Internet--but if Vanessa Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, and Vinnie Jones think this film is worth their while, then you should probably pay attention to them.Second, at a time when the British film industry was in something of a slump, the filmmakers behind "The Riddle" not only made their movie (with an amazing cast), they got it into the hands of 4.5 MILLION PEOPLE. This would be an impressive accomplishment for any film, but for a quirky, ambitious indie movie, it's unprecedented. And as an aspiring independent filmmaker, I find that inspirational.

cliveowensucks Famous as the British film so bad it had to be given away for free with a newspaper, the quality of this sub-Children's Film Foundation "thriller" can be guessed from the abnormal number of 10/10 votes it gets and the large number of rave reviews from posters with no posting history and no other reviews to their name. The regulars know what this mean, the gullible might be conned. If they do dip into the waters of this one they won't last long before it drags them under. Technically inept with the boom mike getting into shot or the reflections of the crew visible it just goes on forever in a forgetful sub-DAVINCI CODE on $5 a day way. The end is just insulting but don't worry. It's not as if you'll get that far!