Collateral (Mini Series)

So when this show was announced, I had just recently finished Black Earth Rising, another BBC Netflix joint venture that nobody watched. While that show has its issues, what I really liked about it was that it was a political thriller on a particular topic that was somewhat realistic while still maintaining a mystery carrying it through. Collateral seemed like a logical jumping point. It also didn’t hurt that it featured a really good cast of British actors, including a couple who had runs on Doctor Who like Carey Mulligan, Billie Piper, and Jon Simms. Being a fan, I find it fun watching those actors excel in other areas.

However, I tried watching this show a while ago and got pretty bored after the first episode. Even this time around I found the first episode to be really boring with a lot of set up. But I wanted to push through, at the very least write a review about a show that seemed to have a lot of potential but really didn’t carry it forward.

Collateral’s story centers on a murder in London of a pizza man who the police later figure out was a refugee from the Middle East. The show has a string of characters who are affected by this murder in one way or another. It mainly follows Detective Kip Glaspie (played by Carey Muligan), a pregnant detective taking the lead on case with her partner (played by Nathaniel Martello-White). But the story also follows the killer, a witness who is living in the UK illegally, the priest she lives with, the woman who last saw the murder victim alive (played by Billie Piper), her ex husband who is a member of the Labour Party (played by Jon Simms) , the owner of the pizza shop the victim worked at, the victims sisters, the list goes on and on. Its all a lot of stories centered by a vague discussion around immigration, the refugee crisis, and Brexit.

The important part is, I’m all for shows that take on a specific topic and ask important questions about it. That’s actually what I really liked about Black Earth Rising, was that it took a very specific topic, the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the International Criminal Court, and made it the setting for an interesting mystery. The problem with both shows is that they’re not really sure what they’re trying to say, the characters are flawed but not incredibly relatable in their flaws, and the shows drag quite a bit.

The first episode is definitely the biggest culprit of all of this. It seems to lay up all these questions and lays the groundwork for there to be something deeper underneath this seemingly simple murder. But I can’t say it really payed off. It definitely gets better as the show goes on and at the end of the day, it is only four hour long episodes, but it was a chore getting through them.

I would say the show gets a lot better when they introduced Captain Sandrine Shaw (played by Jeany Spark). Shaw is an officer in the British military, heavily affected by the wars in the Middle East and wants to continue fighting for a noble cause because that’s all she knows. She’s also dealing with a commanding officer who’s a creep but honestly, she’s arguably the best part of the show. The problem is, after thinking about it for a little bit, I don’t think her story really gets the conclusion it deserved. That could be because this is not an action gun fight TV show.

 I heard a pretty apt comparison saying that this show is a mixture between Homeland and the British crime drama Broadchurch, with a hint of Fargo thrown in their for no reason (mainly because Carey Mulligan’s character is pregnant throughout the show for like no reason, it never comes up), but I did find the comparison pretty accurate. The problem was, there’s no climax. The show kind of meanders around for four hours, hinting at a conclusion, but that conclusion doesn’t really happen. Not for Captain Shaw’s character, and not for pretty much anybody else in the show.

Something positive about the show is that they have a pretty great cast.

I think that's the draw of these shows. People like me see Carey Mulligan, Billie Piper, and Jon Simms and that's enough to draw me in. And to be clear, they all do a good job. Nobody's half assing this show. The problem is, I feel like some of them are miscast. Carey Mulligan does a good job and I'm sure there could have been a lot more examination of this pregnant detective at the bottom of an conspiracy that goes levels above her, but the show has to share time with others like Jon Simms, who does a good job, but he he has such a distinctly menacing voice that it's hard to not see him as the bad guy even though he might be one of the more decent people in the show. And then Billie Piper really was just thrown in for the name recognition because he character adds pretty much nothing to this show. And the weird part is, they allude to her being an Israeli immigrant/refugee(?) but they don't really utilize her enough for it to be an effective performance.

And then there's the journey of the two refugee women who were the sisters of the murder victim.

This is clearly the most politically charged element of the show and like the other elements, there just isn't enough time to really delve into the experiences of these women. They kind of get thrown into a corner for the majority of the show and they don't do a whole lot. The actress who plays the sister who knows English and has the most to do in this show is named Ahd Kamel. She does a fine job in the show, and while there are interesting questions and dialogue to be had about refugees coming into Western countries, I never felt like the show really had a stance. They just kind of threw up the question and let it hang, not giving a clear answer on what it was trying to say. Maybe, it holds more weight to someone who lives in the UK and understands the impact of some of these creative choices, but for me, it didn't feel like the show was really saying anything.

Oh also...

These two added nothing to the show. They could have been totally scrapped and the show probably would have been better because of it.

I think there's a lot that could have been done with this show. Creating a mystery political, even espionage, thriller set in London in the midst of Brexit and a refugee crisis is a really interesting concept and it was the reason I wanted to give this show a chance. However, the only reason I was able to get through the show was due to the fact that it was only 4 episodes long. Oddly enough, the way in which I think this show could have improved was if it expanded to 8 episodes and gave each character some time to really breath and be fleshed out a lot more. Due to the fact that this was a mini series, everything seemed to be condensed but instead of it flying by, the four episodes felt very saturated.

Overall, its hard for me to really recommend this show because of how slow paced and scattered it is. Large casts can be good, but they need time to develop characters properly, and I don't feel like Collateral does that. The strong cast does a good job because they're good actors, but I feel like the show needed a few more episodes to really hit some of the marks they were trying to hit.

As it stands, its a bit of a mess and not worth checking out, despite only being four hours. There's a lot of stuff on Netflix and Collateral is a good example of why these shows do not always succeed.

But those are my thoughts on Collateral. What did you think? Did you see it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should watch in the future. If you follow me in Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!