CRACKER: A NEW TERROR - CRACKER: A NEW TERROR
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| Product DescriptionThe controversial criminologist takes on one last case "Compared with most television investigators, Fitz is still the king" -- The New York Times ROBBIE COLTRANE (Ocean's Twelve, the Harry Potter films) reprises his role as the abrasive, arrogant, and utterly brilliant psychologist, Dr. Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, in this feature-length, final installment of the award-winning crime series. After living as an ex-pat for a decade, Fitz returns to England for his daughter's wedding and finds his homeland profoundly changed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq war. Against the wishes of his family, Fitz joins the police in hunting for a murderer with no apparent motive. A New Terror deftly depicts a world held hostage to violence, both personal and political. It blares from omnipresent TV screens, crops up in casual conversations, and casts its shadow on everyday life. As always, Fitz's insights into this world might edify you or infuriate you. But they will never fail to fascinate. DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE Cracker: Behind-the-Scenes, a 45-minute retrospective documentary featuring interviews with Robbie Coltrane, Jimmy McGovern, Barbara Flynn, Chris Eccleston and other members of the cast and creative team. - Actors: Ian Mercer, Amelia Bullmore
- Director: Michael Winterbottom
- Director: Jean Stewart (III)
- Director: Charles McDougall
- Director: Julian Jarrold
- Director: Simon Cellan Jones
- Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
- Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language (Original Language): English
- Release Date: 2007-08-28
- Running Time: 108 minutes
- Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Customer ReviewsReviewed on 2008-02-22  
Cracker: But an OLD Terror
Except for a surprise about a third into the show, this cop story is so predictable that I don't feel guilty about talking in detail about the plot, though I'll try not to spoil anything important. But you've been warned.
This story is ruined by copying American cop show cliches (both in the subject matter of the story and in the TV techniques used to tell it).
There's the extended brutality of a junkie being beaten senseless.
After flashbacks of a killer's memory of dead children lying on a floor, we see our hero climb stairs to where he knows there are children. We see the legs of the children on the floor, motionless, then we see our hero's pained face, then we see the children alive and smiling, watching TV (just like we are at this point). Why the horrified expression on our hero if the kids are all right? It's just a gimmick.
One of the things this story supposedly tries to do is make Americans look bad.
One of the victims is an American who's "sniffing around our women" and who treats the Manchester police like valets (in the American, not the British, sense of the word).
Most of the killer's victims are Americans who show a lack of respect for the British military. (It's a joke about the British in Northern Ireland that triggers the first murder, not anything to do with Bush's war in Iraq or his "lap dog" Tony Blair.)
In fact, the cause of all these murders is Britain's occupation of Belfast, not the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
As it turns out, the Manchester police would have found the killer just as soon even if they hadn't enticed Fitz away from his family.
Of course Fitz confronts the killer and gets him to admit to trying to get the police to kill him because he's afraid to commit suicide. But it looks to me like it's Fitz who's trying to get the killer to kill him, because Fitz can't deal any more with being a drunk and a compulsive gambler who's driven all the people who love him away. (This scene is a cheat, too, making it seem the killer may be granting Fitz his self-destructive wish, but you know he can't be.)
This whole story could have been told if the attacks on September 11 had never happened. I think the producers just wanted to make the story more relevant by tying it to what what Robert Harris in The Ghost: A Novel called "a new Hundred Years War."
|  | Reviewed on 2008-01-06
More Cracks Appear in Fitz' Family Life
Fitz is so endearing because he is truly flawed. He smokes, gambles and definitely drinks too much. Just ask his daughter what she thinks about the toast he gave to her groom at their wedding. Yet, he manages to solve the latest string of murder cases by interrogating and exposing the culprit even though the police constable doesn't really listen to his ideas. And Fitz is brutally honest to his wife when he admits to her that he would rather spend time with the police officers than with his own grandchild. In response to the reviewers who thought the episode was too political and anti-American, I say that Cracker has always taken on the controversial issues of it's time. That is one of the factors which make the detective story seem realistic and intriguing to its fans. The worthwhile special features on the DVD include interviews with Robbie Coltrane, Jimmy McGovern, Barbara Flynn, Chris Eccleston and other members of the cast and creative team. | | Reviewed on 2007-12-12
Crackers
THIS IS ONE CRACKERS THAT I DID NOT LIKE AT ALL. IN FACT I NEVER FINISHED WATCHING IT. ITS NOT AS GOOD AS THE OLD CRACKERS
| | Reviewed on 2007-11-24
New terror - old ways
This was a disappointing return by Robbie Coltraine to what was a cracker of a series in its day. The plot was not nearly as interesting as previous episodes and the ending very predictable. | | Reviewed on 2007-11-15
Brilliant
I was waiting for this one for a long time. "Fitz" is brilliant, as usual. And (as usual) he continues to be self-destructive. Having been away from England for 10 years, Fitz returns for his daughter's wedding but ends up helping the police crack open a murder investigation. The episode is truly worthwhile because it is used to highlight the differences between the "old" and the "new" i.e. the old city vs the new city, the old police department vs the new department, old crime vs new terror threat. The amazing thing is that even though everything has changed, Fitz hasn't. And it is precisely for that reason that he succeeds here also. | |
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