Monroe: Class of '76 (2005)

Cars swerve to avoid an agitated man wandering on a freeway until the man is hit by a truck and killed. Eyewitnesses said the man Pat Fisher was clearly disturbed and some on the police force think that no other explanation or investigation is necessary-- except for Detective Tom Monroe (Robert Carlyle The Full Monty). Finding newspaper clippings class photos and tape recordings about Fisher's classmates dating back to 1976 in the dead man's apartment Monroe discovers three other mysterious deaths among the class. Soon the deaths and their strange circumstances which date back to the kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Amy Irvine begin to haunt the detective as much as they did Fisher. In this tense gripping psychological thriller Monroe must unravel the mystery of the Class of '76 before as Fisher warns from beyond the grave "It won't be suicide won't be an accident. Every one of us murdered."System Requirements:Running Time: 136 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: NR UPC: 014381343823 Manufacturer No: ID3438PKDVD Product Description

A Gothic Failure more than a Modern Detective Thriller

There are many good things about this two-part film; the beautiful scenery and good photography, the accomplished acting of the entire cast, and the slow plotting and build-up of suspense, for example. But these unfortunately are not enough to make this film a success.
The main fault is first the writers's and secondly the director's. To heighten the suspense, I guess, the author has added a number of Gothic elements that cumulatively distract and annoy rather than add to the mystery and suspense. While on the case, revisiting the different scenes of the crimes, Inspector Monroe sees flashes of images: are they real people, real visions, or pictures from his own imagination? As these persist and grow more frequent, they become irritating and wearying rather than increasing the mystery. Moreover, the Inspector wanders about, twirls around 360 degrees, and twirls again, supposedly to see if there really is someone there; very poor direction here, I believe, that makes the main character appear ridiculous rather than wise and probing. The denoument is very unsatisfactory - with the flash disappearance of one of the main characters and her flash reappearance a good distance away, with a very unrealistic unwinding of the mystery by means of more Gothic elements, such as the slow mounting of staircases and the climbing of an extended ladder from an attic, leading into who knows what danger. The final solution and explanation of the many deaths from both past (1976) and present (1995) is not very clear: one has to rethink and try to puzzle them out after the film is over. Moreover, there is just too sudden and too great a change of character in the person revealed as the villain at the end. The change in character is just not credible - it simply could not be the same person we have been watching through the film. Sadly, I have to admit that the film is really a Gothic failure, unsatisfactory - and annoyingly so because I really wanted it to succeeed.

There are too a number of technical weaknesses. The first and foremost is that no English subtitles are provided. This is a big mistake: the accents are often so pronounced and the dialogue delivered at such a rapid conversational pace that it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to decipher what is said. Even re-running the disc (not so easy to do with a dvd disc) often does not clear up the problem. Subtitles would have been a tremendous help. Secondly, the only extra provided is a trailer, which is no help at all towards understanding and appreciating the film.
June 26, 2008

Welcome to the Class of 76...

A man is killed by a truck on a free way and at first everyone is saying that the dead man, Pat FISHER was clearly suffering some sort of mental breakdown.

Even the local police think that it nothing more than a terrible tragedy but Detective Tom Monroe (Robert Carlyle, The Full Monty) is not so sure that Pat's death is so cut and dried, especially when he finds newspaper clippings, some old school photos including a group photo taken in 1976 where one of the children's face is blurred and no one can remember who he/she is, not even one of the teachers who taught at the school.

Monroe soon discovers that there are other mysterious deaths among the children in the school photo he he finds in Pat's belongings and that his old friend's strange words on a tape recording that "they have all been murdered" might just have an element of truth in it and with this in mind Monroe sets about finding out the horrific truth about the Class of 76.

This is a really suspenseful film which makes you physically jump on more than one occasion, in fact I found it really creepy at times, and though the ending is not quite what you expect, you do understand what has happened even if you don't quite believe it. March 14, 2007

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