Customer Reviews

Cracker: The Complete Collection

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"Cracker: The Complete Collection," is our first opportunity to acquire all eleven of the riveting mysteries in the highly-praised British television series of crime dramas. It comes as a deluxe set of ten disks that includes all three series of the long-running British mystery (1993-95), two standalone TV movies, and a 45-minute behind-the-scenes retrospective documentary. It runs approximately 22 ½ hours all told, and also includes, thank goodness, and thank you Acorn Media Group, subtitles for each episode: it would, otherwise, be rather difficult for us on this side of the pond to make out the Manchester accent, as that handsome, ethnically diverse northern English city is where the series was largely filmed, and the actors encouraged to utilize its hard-on-the-ears accent. The series has shown here on the A & E network, and on BBC America: it was made by Granada for broadcast over the independent TV stations (ITV) in the United Kingdom.

Jimmy McGovern (The Street), a hugely talented writer who has traveled far on, and from, his Celtic working class Liverpool origins, created the series and wrote several of the strongest episodes. The series stars the very large Scottish Robbie Coltrane, who took his stage name in homage to the American jazzman John Coltrane; he was better-known at that time as a comic actor (Nuns on the Run, I believe, is where I first saw him, playing with Eric Idle). Coltrane made the role of Cracker, Edward Fitzgerald, a brilliant but deeply flawed forensic psychologist, who frequently worked with the police, his own; and his extraordinary work in it made him famous. He has gone on to play in Ocean's Twelve,GoldenEye, and as Hagrid in the Harry Potter films. Coltrane is volcanic in "Cracker," and there are those who will say, like "The Philadelphia Inquirer," that it is his greatest role.

Mind you, Coltrane plays Fitz as an abrasive, egocentric man, addicted to alcohol, cigarettes and gambling: the character drinks a bottle of scotch a day; smokes 50-60 cigarettes, and keeps his family in constant financial turmoil with his gambling. Coltrane is backed in this series by an excellent supporting cast: Christopher Eccleston (Heroes, Doctor Who), as DCI David Bilborough; Geraldine Somerville (Harry Potter series), as DS Jane Penhaligan; and Barbara Flynn (The Beiderbecke Affair), as Fitz's long-suffering wife, Judith.

In addition, the producers have gone out and hired some of the best actors around - and a lot of Celts-- for guest star spots. The often-seen Irish actors Adrian Dunbar, and Susan Lynch each carry an episode, he as Kelly in the first, "The Madwoman in the Attic," a story of railway murders based on a real murder that took place in a train en route to London in the early 90s. She, Lynch, carries the second episode, "To Say I Love You," as Tina; both are powerful performers in powerful stories. The veteran, well-known character actress Beryl Reid also shows up in this second episode, as Fitz's horse-playing mother. The intense Scottish actor Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty - Fully Exposed Edition), as Albie, a skinhead, carries the fourth episode "To Be a Somebody," so well, people are still talking about it. The almost-equally intense English actress Samantha Morton carries the fifth episode, one written by Ted Whitehead rather than McGovern, "The Big Crunch," as a teenage schoolgirl too naïve for her own good. The lovely Fleur Bennett carries the ninth, "True Romance," as an achingly vulnerable young woman: she too, I believe, started in comedy, or at any rate I saw her first as Mavis Moulterd, country-girl/straight-woman to John Inman's Mr. Humphries in the early 90's Are You Being Served? Again! (The Complete Series)

McGovern's scripts are tight, cunning, and fast, no leisurely British exposition here, and capable of continual surprises. Whitehead's are very good, but not quite. Paul Abbot's scripts are fine, but not in the same stratosphere. In Abbot's 9th episode, "True Romance," we suddenly get a left-wing; anti-Thatcher outburst of the sort that could quite ruin McGovern's final script included here, the 2006 standalone, "A New Terror," for a lot of people. There is also a 1996 standalone, "The White Ghost," nice script by Abbot, set in that fascinating and beautiful, tropical, oriental and British city, Hong Kong, in that fraught time shortly before its July 1st, 1997 handover to the Chinese.

Granada certainly didn't stint on this series; it's lavishly filmed, with plenty of cars and people in the urban streets, auditoriums and nightclubs full of students. Direction was excellent, from Antonia Bird and Michael Winterbottom, among others. The music, from a number of talented men, also adds to the mood. The Hong Kong mystery really gives you an eyeful of that great city. The series won more than 25 major awards, including two BAFTAs for best drama series, and three for best actor for Coltrane. Many critics, including one at "The Boston Globe" consider it the best made-for-TV-mystery or cop series. And me? I won't lie to you: I have always loved this series.

Winner of more than 25 major awards, including BAFTAs for best drama series and best actor, Cracker: The Complete Collection is a DVD set of the enthralling British crime drama about Dr. Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a forensic psychologist with an uncanny ability to divine the motivations of psychopaths. At the same time, Fitz is driven by his own self-destructive compulsions - scotch, sex, and gambling, and his personal arrogance makes him barely tolerable to his co-workers. A 45-minute bonus special feature "Cracker: Behind the Scenes" enhances this dark saga of the nightmare side of urban life. Cracker: The Complete Collection is a worthy addition to mystery and crime drama DVD collections. 10 DVDs, approximately 22 1/2 hours plus bonus, full screen and widescreen, subtitles.

Being old enough to enjoy the series the first time round, couldnt help but purchase all of what is on DVD on Cracker after watching the first series again ... What it brought to me was the quality of how some producers, actors etc. are able to bring realism to the set and maintain amazing characters at the same ... Coltrane has his own qualities, and is obviously an actor very rarely rivalled on TV drama, and has this asset of dragging the audience into the character he plays, and despite being this large, common, drinking and smoking machine, only seeks sympathy from the watcher, and certainly gets it ... Another nice thing about the whole series, is that although maybe shocking in the first couple of series, the quality of themes, acting etc. never fails and for this type of drama surely will always be hard to top such an act ... Hopefully in the future Mr Coltrane will seek to return to give us one or two more feature films to enjoy! ... Oh, just a comment on the above, supposedly watched by our American brothers and sisters, the accent is also hard to follow in certain hollows in the UK too ... TimCracker: The Complete Collection

If you loved Prime Suspect & Inspector Lynley series you will love this, you can see that HBO and Showtime got some of their series ideas from this show. Robbie Coltrane is great. Don't waste your time on the USA series which is not the same.

You don't see writing and acting this good in the US. A wonderful, greatly flawed character played by Robbie Coltrane keeps things very interesting!

Robbie Coltrane is good in everything he does. However, CRACKER is where he captured most of us as fans, well in advance of his Harry Potter role as Hagrid. Coltrane plays Fitz, a psychologist who helps the police solve murder cases. This was well before the Dr. Tony Hill shows. Where Tony Hill is eccentric and tends to live in his own world, Fitz lives large in the real world indulging just about every vice there is. He's loud, obnoxious, a gambler, a drinker, a smoker. His wife leaves him because of the gambling only to start having an affair with her psychiatrist. Fitz has two teenagers who he off and on parents. In short, he's a total mess in his own life which makes him utterly believable as a psychologist. He is also an instructor at the university level, just like Tony Hill is. Fitz is not really a profiler though. He doesn't work in generalities which is what a profiler does in making a capsule summary of who the killer is likely to be. No, Fitz goes banging around getting in everyone's face to solve his cases. When he interrogates someone, it is psychologically brutal.

The cases themselves are very good. We open with a serial murder. The chief suspect is an amnesiac who is found in a field near the railroad tracks covered in blood. All the young women have been murdered on trains. As Fitz tries to tear the suspect down, things no one else notices begin to bother him. Such as he spots the man has never worn a watch in his life. He makes none of the motions a person who has worn a watch makes plus he has no watch line on his wrist. How does someone who is using train timetables to murder women get by with never wearing a watch?

I've seen all of the episodes. The very last ones were not as good as the early ones but every show begins petering out after awhile. If you have enjoyed the other British Mystery series, you will love this one.

This is a British mystery series so, as usual, the actors are wonderful.

There is an American version of this show, by the same name, with a different actor, but I have never seen it.

This is a great series, for many, many reasons. I love the fact that the name of the show is "Cracker" which is NOT the actual name of the lead character. This is something that would likely not happen in American TV; producers would be afraid of confusing the average viewer, who, in the minds of those who control American TV, is at the mental level of a ten-year old. Another thing which you'd never see in US shows is a leading man who would be morbidly obese. So wonderfully refreshing, mercurial, contrary, rebellious, iconoclastic! All character traits of Edward Fitzgerald, by the way. He is totally dedicated to a plethora of addictions: smokes cigs constantly, puts away about a quart of booze a day, is a degenerate gambler, yet never once do you hear him say anything about giving any of them up. His marriage of twenty years is hanging by a thread, he's alienated his two kids, his work life is a shambles.

Yet, unlike the police, he is a brilliantly insightful psychologist who seems to be able to sniff out perpetrators within five minutes of meeting them. He goes on intuition, hunches, and bold but very educated guesswork to crack difficult cases. Each episode contains at least one great scene of Fitz, in the interview room, usually seen though a cloud of smoke, having a little chat with a suspect. He masterfully employs various methods to extract the truth: anger, bullying, insinuation, irony, sarcasm, trickery, he'll stop at nothing. Quite often he reduces the poor blighters to tears. Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane is simply amazing in the lead. There are a host of great Irish, English and Scottish actors appearing as cops, victims and criminals. Watch for the gruff, grizzled, overweight, working-class, bespectacled Ricky Tomlinson, outstanding in many of Ken Loach's films, as the top cop in the middle episodes. Irish actor Lorcan Cranaich is great as a visceral and reactive cop who's constantly butting heads with Fitz. Geraldine Sommerville is very good as the sweetly pretty young police inspector Penheligan, who can't help but be attracted to the larger-than-life Fitzgerald.

Yes, we are asked to believe that a beautiful, fit 30-year old female cop would fall in love with a 50-ish, fat, loudmouth boor who smokes and drinks and gambles. Go figure! Somehow it works!

Any criticism I'd have would be that the cops always seem to be forgetting just how sharp Fitz is. Seems like they are always celebrating a premature arrest as a "case closed", toasting one another over a few pints, and do not handle it well when Fitz tells them they have the wrong man. They react with jokes and jeers and, with Cranaich's character particularly, open hostility. Then Fitz ferrets out the true criminal and they all have to eat crow. In real life, if a guy was a good as Fitz, he'd be the first person the "old Bill" would ring, and they'd be fawning all over him.

I wouldn't pay full price for this from Acorn. I usually peruse the Acorn catalog for what's available, then go to Amazon for a more realistic and "sane" price, if I'm in the mood to buy. For example, Acorn wants $120 for this full set, but Amazon only $60. What would you do?

oh wow. this is so great, i love the series anyhow and the dvds are perfect, impeccable, thank you.

We both loved this collection, except for the "bash the Americans/they deserved 911" entry in
the collection. Even my husband, who is English, was offended by that.

Robbie Coltrane is superbly fascinating and we enjoyed looking at the mysteries
of murder from the psychological standpoint.

Highly recommend this!

Aside from the final episode of the fourth season which is the weakest of the entire series, this is television at its very best. Coltrane is electrifying in his performance as a forensic psychologist with an array of self-destructive behaviors. As good as Coltrane is in the role, so too are the supporting cast all outstanding in their authenticity. (Be forewarned...this is not for children.)

Cracker: Series 1
Cracker - Series 2
Cracker - The Complete Third Season