Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger, Kerr Logan, Robert Glenister, Sophie Winkleman, Christine Cole, Robert Pugh, Sophie Colquhoun, Nicholas Agnew, Suzanne Burden, Paul Butterworth, Judi Kenley, Joe Johnsey, Andrew Hawley, Ralph Davis, Suzanne Toase, Natalie Gumede, Joseph Quinn, Alfie Tardi, James Mellish, William Gurney, Nick Blood, Safron Coomber, Jamie Ankrah, Joel Gillman, Robyn Holdaway, Kathleen Cranham, Danny Ashok, Jaqueline Boatswain, Julie Morgan Price, Silas Carson, Jack Greenlees, Ruth Lass, Natalie Walter, Adam Long, Nicholas Burns, Mandana Jones, Ann Akin, Shenagh Govan.
Work and home make uneasy bedfellows, even when they are balanced and allegedly separate, they can still cause friction between colleagues and family; it only takes a moment of interference from one, to cross over into the other, for it all to explode in our faces and leave a crater in which something very different will crawl out of the wreckage, bitter, angry and looking for revenge.
When the balance of work and love is disturbed by what passes as love, then the situation becomes darker, muddled, unhappier, and when that moment is twisted by greed, by the desire for revenge, it becomes the most lethal drive of them all.
As if the story wasn’t enough of a pull for the armchair detective to get their teeth into, it also marks arguably Sue Tully’s most prominent and intriguing time behind the camera. The former Grange Hill and Eastenders actor has carved out a tremendous career since she last stepped out in front of the audiences, but in Strike: Lethal White, all that knowledge, all the drama experience pays off in ways that might have seen the fourth story of Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike take a decidedly less than dynamic turn.
It is the intimacy between director/producer and that of the cast that is so often missing, the attention to the scene and its implications further into the story, that is so frustratingly devoid in the hands of some, that Sue Tully comes to the fore and shines a fascinating light under the stone of detective drama. By focusing on the subtle, the despairing crime of misplaced love, Sue Tully brings a dedication to the life of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, and those caught in their wake, which does not come across easily on screen.
The act of crime, of murder, is invariably framed by a love that is corrupted, born of lust, of lies and want, it is in this fearsome dynamic that Strike and his associate find that love is a path skewed, with pitfalls that wait to ensnare all who think they can avoid the dangers lurking in the shadows; after all, there is always that one person who will take advantage of the situation by witnessing the dark heart at play.
Ian D. Hall