Prime Suspect 3 (1994)

Helen Mirren is Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison and has been transferred to a new station and now has the job of cleaning up the streets of Soho. D.C.I. Tennison takes the team into the underworld of teenage prostitution pornography and runaways in the third season of Prime Suspect.Running Time: 208 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359185021 Product Description

Tennison is Greatest cop

Jane Tennyson is a fantasic cop. She is real life and always get her man. This series is one of the best Detecive series ever. I've seen most of the episodes twice and will likely watch again some time.

Top stars to Helen Mirren for her portrayal. July 13, 2008

Difficult subject

This deals with the uncomfortable subject of pedophilia. The mystery is uncovered slowly, which is good, but the uncovering of the mystery happens in fits and starts, which I felt inferior to the steady pace (with a final surprise discovery) a good mystery should have. We know long before the end whodunit, but have to spend a third of the movie undoing the coverup. Thus the last third becomes a different kind of movie - more like a legal case. While that isn't bad, I think the change from requires a shifting of the viewer's expectations while following the plot.
I also felt that the authorities-are-hiding-the-truth aspect was depicted as indecisive, which detracted from suspense, a needed attribute.
Having said all that, the acting was well done - a standard for the series. The internal departmental wrangling and backstabbing were true-to-life, thoroughly believable, and the best parts of the episode. And the ending was credible. February 23, 2008

A terrific, haunting, and EXTREMELY dark story

This probably is the most unusual review I will ever write. I watched Prime Suspect 3 years ago, and I thought it was a terrific police drama with an intricate plot and as always a commanding performance by Helen Mirren and the supporting cast.

But I don't think I will watch it again for decades because the subject matter is so profoundly ugly. In a nutshell, DCI Jane Tennison investigates a horrific murder of a "rent boy" (underage male prostitute) who is found burned to death. In her inquiry into this sordid world, Tennison finds evidence of something even worse than this sort of human trafficking...a secret ring of pedophiles preying on young runaways.

There is nothing particularly graphic visually, but the subject matter is something that I think most people would find profoundly unsettling. I'm not condemning the makers of this Prime Suspect installment because police officers like the fictional DCI Tennison sometimes have to walk in the sewers of society and see all the ugliness that is down there. For being willing to do that and keeping the sewers from overflowing into "decent" society, I salute them.

I just think that this particular story makes me think of a Russian poet who liked to write beautiful poetry about profoundly ugly and disturbing topics. He called it, "plucking the flowers of evil." I think that this Prime Suspect story is an example of that...a terrific story with great acting about criminal behavior and human conduct that is sickening to put it mildly.

So if you aren't easily haunted by disturbing ideas and the grimmest facts of life, you will find this a great police procedural. I just know that I won't be watching it again for a long, long, long time ... if ever. October 6, 2007

Dealing in stereotypes

In several of the entries in the "Prime Suspect" series Helen Mirren, as Detective Chief Inspector (later Superintendant) Jane Tennison and the writing have richly deserved all the accolades that have been heaped upon them over nearly twenty years, but that unfortunately is not the case here. This is the only entry besides the first that was written by the series creator Lynda LaPlante, but the writing is extremely weak. This time, Tennison is trying to uncover the truth about a gay pedophilic ring that involves murder, molestation, and child pornography, and all the gay characters Tennison interviews are either delicate victims or monstrous predators (or both). Everything seems lurid and sensationalistic. The director, David Drury, made the ghastly choice to have a boy's choir pipe in incessantly every time Tennison's detectives come across one of the young street hustlers, as if we might forget that innocence has been corrupted. We are also treated to such cliches as fluttery drag queens and menacing AIDS-infected children who inflict deadly bites on the detectives; and it's no good excusing all this by chalking it up to the attitudes of the times, because by 1994 LaPlante truly should have known better. The stereotyping of gay characters is so excessive that in the first episode I knew that there'd have to be at least one suicide attempt among the gay characters: there are no less than three of these, and since two of them seem wildly telegraphed ahead of time in Tennison's immediate proximity she seems like a terrible detective. And she doesn't seem much better as a boss, either, this time around. Usually Tennison must contend with both superiors and subordinates constantly undermining her authority because of her gender, but though her superiors are genuinely out to get her again, here Tennison's underlings seem to be doing the best they can, even though they're constantly being barked at by her for everything imaginable. If you hadn't seen the previous entrants in the series, you'd just think she were just an unpleasant crank.

Mirren, normally an unimpeachable actress, seems to have been done no favors by Drury who allows her to engage in all kinds of distracting bits of "business," like chomping away at her nicotine gum like a house afire to show her distraction and anxiety. David Thewlis, who is also equally talented, also gives a performance that is all tics as the nasty street hustler who is Tennison's prime suspect in the murder of an underage rent boy, and purses his lips over and over again when being interviewed by Tennison and her staff. It's impossible to believe that either he or Ciaran Hinds (here, flat and dull) could deliver any of the menace or charisma needed to keep so many young victims in line. The other actors fare much better, particularly James Frain as a sweet-sad molestation victim and Peter Capaldi as a nervous drag queen. They, and the machinery of the plot, are really all that keeps this production afloat. July 3, 2007

Helen Mirren, the BEST!

Loved Prime Suspect, Season 2
Wish I had known about this series years ago but so glad I did eventually find out about it! I'll get all seasons eventually. GREAT price!
I don't feel like I'm watching TV. I feel like I'm watching a well made movie! March 15, 2007

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