Customer Reviews

Prime Suspect 1 [VHS]

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2 star:		(3)
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Helen Mirren stars as Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in this dramatic BBC miniseries.

A serial killer is at large, and Tennison inherits the mantle of investigating the lead suspect. While certain elements of the story are largely predictable, there is also an unexpected element of surprise with the way the tale unfolds. Mirren adds a definitive credibility to the vulnerable character of Tennison, struggling for any reasonable work/life balance, and she proves to be the most interesting sleuth to come out of England since Sherlock Holmes.

Time Magazine voted this, in its initial airing, the second most important television event of the year ... right behind Johnny Carson's farewell show. A must viewing for serious fans of mystery genre.

DCI Jane Tennison, superbly played by Helen Mirren, is not to be trifled with. Her charging, take-no-prisoners attitude is great fun to watch. She suffers fools poorly . . . or rather they suffer from her. Why do these chauvinists love to pick fights with her? Personally, I'd give her wide berth! Prime Suspect begins the six-part series.

Full disclosure . . . I'm a flag waving, red state kind of guy. My gastritis flairs when I confess the Brits blow us out of the pond in dramatic construction. These dramas are not just good. They're awesome. Each is exquisitely plotted with three dimensional characters(maybe Jane has five dimensions). The action in the squad room has a documentary feel to it.

It is a joy to watch DCI Jane in action; a role made for Helen Mirren. She flirts with you, insults you, kicks you, and always fights for justice. Usually in a multi-part series such as Prime Suspect, I will have a favorite . . .but this is not true here: each is a gem.

As usual the UK has produced and delivered a series that puts to shame anything that American television has to offer. Helen Mirren is ranked one of the world's best actors-and for good reason.
I have all of the DVD's in the Prime Suspect series, having watched them first on public television's ExxonMobil Theatre. If you are one of those who make deliberate choices based on quality, then do not miss this series. It is one of, if not THE best, that television has to offer.

There are very few television programs I would consider buying on DVD, but this is definitly one of them.

Watching Prime Suspect on DVD is a real treat. If you saw it in America on PBS, you don't realize how much continuity and tension are lost by all of the inevitable pledge breaks.

Helen Mirren is nothing short of brilliant as Inspect Jane Tennison, the first woman to hold the post of D.C.I. (Deputy Chief Inspector) on a major homicide investigation. She must not only solve a series of murders, but battle sexism and sabotoge within her department.

Great acting in the supporting roles and a first rate script (written by Linda LaPlante)are enough to carry this story. But what really sets it apart is how it manages to get you rooting for Jane Tennison without being cloying or sentimental. We see this woman as a human being, warts and all. Her obsession with work leads her to neglect her relationships. She is quick to anger. Sometimes her first judgement is not the right one. But through it all you want her to succeed. She gives everything to her job.

If you like mysteries or police stories, this is as fine as piece of television as you'll see.

The video and audio transfer are only so-so (by DVD standards), but this is the happy exception where the DVD is cheaper that VHS. You've got to flip the disk, but a small price to pay for an entire evening of great drama.

Prime Suspect started what has become the best series of detective specials ever.

Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) is a Deputy Chief Inspector (DCI) with the Metropolitan Police in London. But the Met is an all boys club. Jane is also starting a new relationship with a divorcee, Peter (Tom Wilkinson).

Episode 1 -
A woman was found brutally murdered in the bed sit (business apartment) of prostitute Della Mornay. DCI Shefford has been assigned the case. They find a rare blood type in the bed sit and are able to trace it to a convicted rapist George Marlow. They arrest and question Marlow and he admits to frequenting Della. But the quick end of the investigation changes when DCI Shefford has a heart attack and dies.

There is no available DCI's for the case, well no male DCI's. Jane makes a pitch to her boss and with some trepidation, he gives her the case. This makes her the first female DCI to handle a murder investigation. The old boys network circles the wagons to sabotage Jane, lead by Shefford's second Detective Sergeant Bill Otley.

The first thing that Jane does is confirm the victim's identity. But the victim's finger prints do not match Della's, they must now find out the victim's identity. They slim down the missing persons to two and Jane visits the family and discovers the girl's identity, Karen Howard. Now they have to connect Marlow with Karen Howard.

Episode 2 -
The 72 hours is up and Jane must make a decision, charge or release Marlow. Since she has no compelling evidence, Marlow is released. This displeases everyone and Otley uses this to his advantage.

Jane realizes something is wrong and looks through a desk and finds the missing Della Mornay file and diary. The following day Otley has convinced the Superintendent to remove Jane from the case but now Jane has all the cards. It comes out that not only Shefford but Otley knew Della Mornay. She was their confidential informant. Further, there are pages missing from her diary. It turns out that Shefford also visited Della "professionally".

Jane goes on Crime Watch to see if this will yield any clues and it does. A witness is found and might tie Marlow to Karen Howard.
(Look for Ralph Fiennes at the beginning of the episode as Karen's boyfriend.)

Episode 3 -
When the witness chooses the wrong person from the line up, the investigation is stepped up. Jane goes to Marlow's employer and finds out that he started with the firm in Manchester and that his common law wife, Moira (Zoe Wannamaker), accompanied him on his sales trips. Jane gets Marlow's trip records and has the crew match similar murders. They locate three more homicides. Also, Jane interviews Marlow's cell mate and finds out that Marlow had a lock-up (rental garage).

In investigating the first suspected linked murder it is found out that Shefford was on the case. Jane needs to find out if he was involved in the other investigations. This is the last straw with her boss and is being taken off the case.

Episode 4 -
The crew has determined that enough similarities exist to consider these murders connected. Now Jane has to figure out what tie Marlow to the victims. It takes her assistant, a woman, to come up with Moira. She is a free lance beautician. Jane brings her in and starts to rattle her.

When her boss "The Gov" catches up with her, she is told that all of her crew have refused to allow her removal from the case. But the good news is interrupted by the news that George and Moira are on the move.

At Euston underground, they split up. The crew split up to follow them. While Moira is off shopping, George leads them to the lock-up. Both are arrested and after she is confronted again, Moira recants her testimony. Then George confesses of the six cases.

Lynda LaPlante has created one of the great police movies and the greatest female police character. Helen Mirren gives a magnificent performance as the under appreciated DCI Jane Tennison. She takes LaPlante's script and hits every nuance to perfection.

This miniseries also featured early performances by future stars including a cameo by Ralph Fiennes, future Oscar nominee Tom Wilkenson as Jane's current boyfriend and a stunning performance by Zoe Wannamaker as Moira, the prime suspect's girlfriend.

This series has spawned five additional miniseries, none of which was a good as the original but better than anything else on television. (The first three won Emmy Awards for Best Mini-Series).

Buy this and the other and have a great time.

DVD EXTRA: Helen Mirren biography

This is more of a review for people that loved the series Prime Suspet and are thinking about purchasing the dvd. The series is fantastic, but the dvds available in the US are quite poor quality. There are weird artifacts in the images as a result of poor compression rate, etc. If you want to get good high-quality dvds of this series you're better off ordering them from the UK (amazon.co.uk has them), but make sure your dvd player can play Region 2 dvds!

...balls? In this superbly performed thriller, the focus is not so much in the gory details of a serial killer murders, but in the kind of pressure that woman inspector Tennison has to handle when taking over the investigation, thus stepping into a men's world. She had an idea of what was going to happen, and she is prepared to face the downright rejection of the all-male team supposed to work under her orders. What she is not so well prepared for is the consequences that her dedication to her work will have in her personal life. And underneath the whole thriller plot, we can sense dark and dirty secrets among some of the police officers that Tennison can only begin to grasp. Beware of the ending ... it's a cliff-hanger!

If you like great acting, great directing and a great suspense story, look no further. Helen Millen does a superb job of portraying a female detective (DCI Tennison) in London who takes over a homicide investigation into serial murders after her male colleague passes away. Besides trying to come up with concrete evidence to put the prime suspect away, she must battle her own department, run by male colleagues who don't trust her competence simply because she's a woman. Tennison is able to rise to the occasion, rally the department behind her, and solve the murders. Mirren does a fascinating job of portraying Tennison as an intelligent and competent detective, an overchiever who often puts her work ahead of her relationships. Even though Tennison is seen with her flaws and all, the audience believes in her and roots for her all the way. This excellent drama was originaly an HBO miniseries and is followed by several sequels, which are just as outstanding. Highly recommended!

Even though I loved this movie, I was disappointed by the DVD in that it did not have close-captioning.

As the other reviews here attest, this is a tremendously compelling series - initiated beautifully in 1992 with this nearly 4-hour episode (the next three episodes were about the same length...PS5 and PS6, which I don't think actually had those titles, were about 2 hours each). Lynda La Plante's script reconsiders the drab police procedural as a breathtaking and life-shaking event. Indeed there is much here that can be savored and appreciated on repeated viewings. Helen Mirren's performance is nothing less than astonishing. She is very human(e) and someone who endures much that both women and men will be able to easily identify and empathize with. However, while this series is certainly welcome (and wanted!) on DVD (although Prime Suspect 1 and 2 were available briefly on DVD in 1998 - and now out of print), this new edition - issued in 2003 - may not be the perfect release. (1) There is at least one full scene missing (Tennyson meets George's mother at her seaside rest home). (2) There seemed to be a couple of brief - though not awful - visual glitches on the first disc of my copy. (3) The handsomely packaged 2-disc set is quite expensive. None of these reasons is meant to fend anyone off of such an incredible performance (Dame Mirren) and one of the best crime series ever aired on TV. But such great work certainly deserves a little better attention.

the plaudits for helen mirren and the prime suspect series have been in for years, and i have little to add, except to say that john bowe's performance as "the suspect" works its way into your system and rewards multiple viewings. this is a welcome addition to the dvd catalog,and i hope that all the prime suspect shows will follow on this format...but please,please give us dual layer discs to save the obligatory disc flip half way through the show (i know you can do it, anchor bay).the digital transfer is good (not great), and the sound is only o.k....but these are but trifles in the face of such great storytelling and etc. etc.....