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Movie Review by The Gravedigger
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03.24.04
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Robson Green portrays detective Dave Kreegan, who is the newest member of England's Organized and Serial Crime Unit. A year before he had been shot in the head-and had a near-death experience, which we find out midway through this mini-series. His partner, Susan Taylor (Nikola Walker) complains that he's not communicative and acts too much on his own, which he does. Kreegan is a loner. He visits his children, who live with his ex-wife, but other than that has no life. So, when he's on a job hebecomes totally immersed in it. The first case he has involves young boys who are kidnapped and then murdered. They aren't molested in any way, so the killer isn't a pedophile. Kreegan and the other members of the OSC have to figure out who is doing the killing and why. It turns out to be a college professor who is trying to relive a childhood experience over and over again. When he was twelve-years old he watched his best friend drown to death and did nothing to help him. With these children he abducts he tries to recreate that feeling. There's very little evidence to convict him of this and in the end they aren't able to arrest him. But Kreegan knows that he's guilty and will do it again. So he breaks into the man's house one night, draws out his gun and is about to kill him-only to find out that the man is already dead, holding a gun and slumped over his desk with a hole in his head. Is it a suicide? Kreegan doesn't think so because the man had no conscience. It turns out that another member of the team decided to take justice in his own hands-and this taints the next few cases they are working on as this character becomes more and more of a vigilante. Kreegan figures out what's going on and warns him to turn himself in-but it's to no avail and the situation eventually turns out horribly.The other two cases involve a nurse who is killing people who had near-death experiences, returning them to what she believes is a far far better place. And she even manages to kill Kreegan for a second time and brings him back. She wants to be caught and killed because she's unable to kill herself. Yet, how Kreegan deals with her makes her able to do so.In the last case a group of college students are involved in a cult-like game called Amathus, where they are given instructions on a website and have to act them out in real life. The first is to slash a horse and get some of it's blood on a rag. Everyone does this except one member, who ends up cutting himself to get the blood. They find out and kick him out of the gang, though he fears for his life. The leader of the group is the most obsessed. The instructions for the game get more and more violent and two of the members end up killing people and are arrested. The OSC investigates and finds out that the game mimics the real-life crimes of a prostitute who killed pimps-people who she believed needed to be killed. Kreegan and his partner get her help and are able to track down the man who is responsible for creating the game and stop him from influencing others to kill.But shortly after he's arrested the vigilante member of the group shoots the guy in the head, in front of all the others. This makes Kreegan realize that he has to become more of a team member-and enables him to deal much more directly with his darker side.This is a really good mini-series. There is a fantastical element in that Kreegan, after being shot in the head, seems more in tune with what's going on with the murders. Also, the cases they investigate are all very different from each other and all keep you guessing until the end.Two more series were made (5-6 hours each) in 1998 and 1999 called TOUCHING EVIL II and III. Also, this has recently been made into an American version which I have not as yet seen. I can't imagine it being better than this original.
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Rating: nan out of 10.0 - 0 votes cast total
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