Reviews

The first episode showed a lot of promise but as the series has progressed it has gotten increasingly more annoying and unconvincing. Eddie Redmayne is excellent in the lead role with many nods to Edward Fox in the film version. However what really drags this show down is Lashana Lynch and the character she plays. I appreciate she is meant to be unlikable (well at least I hope that is what she was going for) but she really takes it to another level while at the same time being totally unbelievable in the role all she does is leave you routing for Eddie.

I am not sure what it is with modern directors that feel we need love interests and a side story of domestic discord it just gets in the way of the story and has you reaching for the remote to skip past these unnecessary fillers. Is there a minimum number of episodes in contracts these days that require the story has to be padded out with irrelevant nonsense?

The latest episode (number 5) was the last straw with a super tough Irish terrorist refusing to betray his own brother but a few minutes with a pillow over the face and some pressure applied to a wound has him telling them everything he knows, completely ridiculous.

Anyway I am giving up on this nonsense and going to watch the vastly superior film instead.

This show started off good and entertaining but as it goes on it becomes increasingly less about the cases and detective work and more about the 'relationship' between Strike and Robin. Does anyone really care about her dysfunctional boyfriend or her jealousy at Strike girlfriends, I certainly don't.

I was really looking forward to this documentary and settled in to watch it but it soon became clear it was going to be hard and tedious watch. I don't the makers quite knew which direction they wanted to take with it so we end up with a mash of clips and styles that just doesn't work.

We get animated cartoon segments, clips of Paul Newman talking not about Jack but racing in general and quite possibly the saddest part are the pieces featuring the very elderly Ron Tauranac, John Surtess and Stirling Moss (the latter seems completely confused about what is going on and is only there to tell us his name and that he drove all types of cars in all types of races). I don't know if it was the directors intent to show these fine gentlemen in their worst light but they all look moments away from death.

There are clips of Jack and others racing but most of these are shown on a tiny Tv screen in the middle of the screen that makes it practically impossible to tell what is going on.

Then to round it all off are all the nonsense ramblings of whoever Grayson Perry. It is never shown what his connection is with Jack or even with motorsport. I did google the guy and it just says he does weird art and likes to cross dress, is there anybody alive less qualifified to talk about Jack Brabham.

If you don't mind sitting through a rambling mess then give it go but if you want to see how a documentary should be done about a racing giant then watch the McLaren one instead.

Truly awful and depressing watch.

This is a truly awful adaptation of the classic story. It feels like it was made on a very small budget. The acting is wooden and why oh why do we have to have love issues and relationships in it? I thought the BBC would do a good job on this but it is a total fail in my book.

When you have a film title Group B I think it reasonable to expect quite a lot of Group B cars (we get limited shots of 1 and honestly, with the exception of the Citroen, it was probably the least impressive group B car) and some great group B action but what you get instead is an emotional tale of rally driver with some major issues trying to get back into the saddle and very little driving action. I found it depressing which is far from what I hoped for when I bought it. There were so many great stories in the world of Group B so not sure why they had to invent one.

Having got that off my chest I will say the acting was great