Product Details

• Actors: Ken Stott, Claire Price, Ross Allan, Russell Anderson, Cora Bisset
• Directors: Matthew Evans
• Writers: Daniel Boyle, Ian Rankin
• Producers: Alan J. Wands, Eric Coulter
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Acorn Media
• DVD Release Date: July 25, 2006
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FS9FGW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,266 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Rebus - Set 1" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Based on Ian Rankin’s bestselling crime thrillers

Ken Stott (Shallow Grave, The Vice, Messiah) brings the brooding Inspector John Rebus to life on screen, straight off the pages of Edgar®-winning Ian Rankin’s crime novels. Haunted by his own failings and the human tragedies that he faces every day, Rebus relentlessly pursues truth under the leaden skies of modern-day Edinburgh. His eager young sidekick, DS Siobhan Clarke (Claire Price, Poirot: The Hollow, The Whistle-Blower) resents Rebus’s condescending manner at first, but grudgingly comes to respect her gruff partner’s abilities. Together, they conduct their investigations under the watchful and sometimes jealous eye of their boss, Chief Super Gill Templer (Jennifer Black, Local Hero)—Rebus’s former flame.

With its sardonic, hard-drinking hero, twisting plots, and atmospherics as dense as fog off the firth, Rebus serves up two engrossing mysteries in the best film noir tradition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Casting is spot on, but..., August 19, 2006

By 

R. Clark "music junkie" (northern Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rebus - Set 1 (DVD)

Ken Stott looks the part of Rebus more than John Hannah, and Claire Price DEFINITELY looks the part of Siobhan more than Gayanne Potter. The supporting cast is equally effective, and the stories (Ian Rankin's The Falls and Fleshmarket Close) are translated to the screen reasonably well.

Still, things are definitely lacking here. Gone was every ounce of Rebus' ongoing personal narrative, and the stories are much weaker for it. Gone also was that sense of self-destructiveness that is so very Rebus. These two stories have been reduced to simply average British mysteries. Not bad by any means, but no where near as gripping as Hannah's Rebus. If you're looking for Ian Rankin's stories to come alive on the screen, pick up John Hannah's Rebus.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's A Keeper, May 18, 2008

By 

Stephanie DePue (Carolina Beach, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rebus - Set 1 (DVD)

"Rebus," is another superb British crime drama/police procedural television series, based on the work of best selling Scottish author Ian Rankin. We've been seeing this series on BBC America, though it is not a British Broadcasting Corporation production; rather one by Independent Television (ITV). The series is set in the beautiful tourist city of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, as are the author's works; however, in this production, as in the books on which it's based, we see the beautiful tourist city only in passing, on our way to such menacing high-rise subsidized housing, council housing as the British call it, as "Knoxland,"where the action takes place.

Rankin's first Rebus novel, "Knots & Crosses," was published in 1987, to great critical acclaim. He was accredited with helping to create "tartan noir,"a Scottish take on the usual mystery; tougher, bloodier, more nasty-minded, and delivered with that sardonic Scots humor. Since then, he's won the prestigious "Edgar," and become the United Kingdom's best selling mystery author; his works have been translated into 22 languages. Luckily for us all, he's published quite a bit, so that the TV series has his actual works on which to be based.

The novels used for Set 1 have been adapted for TV by Daniel Boyle (AKA Danny Boyle), greatly talented Celtic writer/director, who's written such series as "Hamish Macbeth," "Inspector Morse," and "Taggart," and has given us such movies as "Trainspotting," and "Twenty-Eight Days Later." He conveys the tension and atmosphere of the originals admirably; gives us many plot twists and turns, and the ironic local wit. Location photography in the city of Edinburgh is excellent, giving us its damp, cold, foggy ambiance. Disk 1, "The Falls," concerns a really unhappy high profile family. It gives us the Glasgow-born Sharon Small, who plays Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, loyal sidekick in the "Inspector Lynley" mystery series, as Miranda Masterson, Rebus's current love interest. Disk 2, "Fleshmarket Close,"concerns recent immigrants to the U.K., and native-born racist bias against them.

This production has been happily recast from the previous series that starred Scottish actor John Hannah. In his place, we have Ken Stott, a much-admired TV actor, as Detective Inspector Rebus. And let me be the first to say that, pleasant as I find it to look at Hannah, he may have been too slightly-built to play a police officer, and too pretty to play a hard-bitten, hard-drinking eccentric man. Stott is a revelation, bringing great gravitas to the brooding cop. Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke has also been recast, with Claire Price; so has Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer, a former lover of Rebus's, with Jennifer Black. And there's a further very welcome development indeed: the addition of subtitles. If you love Scottish mysteries, and aren't familiar with this series, it's time to get acquainted with it. And I think you'll find it's a keeper.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Police Drama set in Scotland, May 23, 2006

By 

Seen Them All "Ace Movie Critic !!" (SoCal Desert) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebus - Set 1 (DVD)

Set in Scotland this is a BBC television series starring John Hannah as an Edinburgh Homicide Detective. Well written and very well acted. Shows the seedy side of Scotland the tourists don't see. The Scottish accents are hard to understand at times but the story lines more than make up for it. Highly Recommended..!!.......Additional Comment: when I did this review there was no photo of the set posted so I made a mistake....here's the correction....the original "REBUS" starred John Hannah and is more "gritty and realistic" than the later versions starring Ken Stott as "Rebus". Both are the same character with two different actors and filmed at different times....both are good but the "original" with John Hannah I believe is better. Sorry for the confusion.