The Escape Artist

It asks interesting questions and the topic is sufficiently sturdy (although adapted better for the screen by the BBC, see Silk). But that alone just isn’t enough. Rather than a three-episode miniseries, this should have been a regular feature movie; there is a considerable amount of filler in this, be it non-boring filler. You don’t get the feeling of time going by; for instance, part one lasts about six months, but seems like just a couple of days. Although the final court hearing was great and makes sense in itself, probably at some point in the course of adapting the original story the answer to “why would he ever do it in the first place?" got lost. If you aren’t British, it is a certain drawback that the final crux, which involves purely the subtle difference between (already considerably unusual) English and Scottish law, but the creators make no attempt at explanation for audiences not from the island. For my taste, Foyle is rather superficial and the guilty party clear from the start. It would be much more interesting to leave some room for his character to have “reasonable doubts", immediately making the entire final section and Will’s demeanor much more interesting in terms of interpretation. However, nothing I mentioned above was a fundamental problem, because in places this can be really oppressive and tense. The biggest problem is Tennant. He’s great in a certain type of role, but he isn’t a character actor who can play anything. And this has never been so clear as in this movie. While he is excellent in the “charming nice guy Will with a happy family and a successful career" phase, in the “dabbling in the dark side of the soul" phase he is at sea. A long way out at sea and at times he is almost ridiculous in his stubbornness. Which highlights and causes the abovementioned problems even more. (21.12.2013)