Pluskylang Great Film overall

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

rainydaywoman-95930 My husband persevered but moaned and criticised the whole time, I gave up and read my book. It really is far fetched, ridiculous and annoying.

Moacir Fuhr I only watch the first season, so the comment below only applies to that: The plot seems interesting at first, but the script is so bad that the series ends up falling in quality to each episode. There is no character development. Everyone is empty and boring, and it's hard to care about any of the characters. The relationship between the main characters, Sandra and Paul Maisonneuve, is simply ridiculous. The script tries to force a relationship that simply never happens. The two behave like strangers throughout the entire series and although a past story is quoted it has no ability to create a true relationship and the two characters spend the whole series being boring and distant. The script is very bad. There are no words to describe how bad it is. French police act like a bunch of retarded people in every episode and the way detectives make the discoveries is simply laughable. Most of the time they simply guess things without any evidence. The acting is very bad too. I just watch the series because I'm studying French and I wanted to have a greater contact with the language and the French culture. But I would never recommend this series to anyone. It's just bad.

daggersineyes I really enjoyed the first season of this series. It was an accidental discovery & I approached it with caution as I often do with SBS shows that can either be excellent gems or - more often - absolute yawn inducing rubbish. But this one turned out to be one of the former & I thoroughly enjoyed season 1 with all it's foibles and flaws. It really is worth watching especially for the lead female although her character is forced to behave somewhat irrationally at times. Is this a French thing? i.e. females are portrayed as flighty and weird and men as a bit dim & boring. Anyway. then I discovered there was a second season available & was very excited. Sadly it didn't live up to the first. Too much focus on the very excellently acted lead female this time. Unfortunately she's let down by terrible scripting and a God-awful plot. It's as if they read reviews and decided to centre the next series just on her and built up some ridiculous story around that idea. But honestly - it's a disaster. She behaves increasingly more and more stupidly as the episodes plod on and her stupidity is the only way the plot can move forward. This is NEVER a good sign. The story is ludicrous, plot holes galore, loose ends by the dozen and just chock full of "oh please.... as if she'd do that" moments. There is far too much asking questions of suspects with no responses. This gets boring and pointless and just wastes everyone's time. And what kind of expert cop doesn't watch for reactions when they drop a significant piece of information on a major suspect?. Instead she keeps looking at her hands and doesn't care how the suspect reacts. Anyway - I digress. By episode 5 I was so annoyed with both female leads and their bumbling pointless male counterparts I stopped watching the series. I didn't even care what happened because they also made the mistake of revealing who was doing it and there was absolutely no mystery nor any reason to care about him or his accomplices. They completely removed the only thing they had left worth watching the show for - it was like. "Wait.... who's that random guy we've never seen before that they're suddenly showing on screen a lot? Oh OK. He's the culprit. Glad that's sorted. So now what?". And the "now what" is nothing - the rest is him following people around doing predictable things when they make predictable mistakes. It's incredibly tedious. He is just a not very well executed plot device to keep the story - around her "disintegration" I guess - stumbling slowly along. For some reason everyone's acting also seems to get more stilted as the show progresses. Maybe they found it all as ridiculous and unconvincing as I did and couldn't put their hearts into it. Can't say I blame them.Season 2 was excruciating and not in any way enjoyable. Don't bother. So in summary! Watch the first series and enjoy - it's a ripper. DO NOT BOTHER WITH THE SECOND it will only spoil your feelings about the first.Cheers and you're welcome.PS nice scenery in the second series tho:)

Richard Horvath Scandi-noir brings with it a set of expectations which Witnesses duly delivers. Female cop with suppressed issues -- check; a wintry French coastal village dominated by Broadchurch style cliffs -- check; improbable crime scenes that darkly hint at a miscreant with a messed up mind -- check, and the usual cool colour palette of blues and greys -- check.Genre conventions are not a bad thing, if used deftly, and Witnesses delivers. Marie Dompnier as the female lead investigator, Sandra Winckler, is impressive as the astute cop who exorcises her insomniac nights by obsessively cleaning her apartment. Thierry Lhermitte plays the former high-flying policeman haunted by family tragedy, and as Winkler's former instructor who is implicated in the bizarre crime, suppresses dark secrets about his past. The location shooting in Le Tréport, with its strange funicular railway which is used as a disturbing feature in the first episode, is inspired, and the photography is superb.This review is based on viewing the introductory episode, which sometimes tends to be dramatically the most engaging with television mini-series, such as The Bridge and its British-French counterpart, The Tunnel, but marred in subsequent weeks by a lurid story trajectory. Hopefully Witnesses will exhibit a narrative restraint where trust is placed in mood and character development without forsaking the sense of unease that is so well established in the opening hour.