Tin Star: Are we ready?
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Athenry
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Tin Star: Are we ready?
Tin Star: Are we ready?
I'm a huge fan of Tim Roth. When I see his name connected with a movie or a television series, I'm on the couch ready to believe. While Roth does not disappoint in his role as Jim Worth, I wonder if writer Rowan Joffe is pushing the character trait too far.
Tin Star is a crime drama first aired in September 2017. It is gritty and gristly, and ghastly, and a whole bunch of adjectives you can poke at it. It opened in Britain to an audience of more than one million viewers. By episode ten, followers dropped to less than two-hundred-and-fifty thousand. It started me thinking, why.
Jim Worth is an undercover police detective formerly with the Metropolitan Police who moves his family from London to start a new life in Canada. He along with his wife Angela (Genevieve O'Reilly) and their troubled daughter Anna (Abigail Lawrie) settle in Little Big Bear where Worth becomes Chief of Police. The town is under the domineering influence of North Stream Oil. Chief of the company's security is Louise Gagnon played by Christopher Heyerdahl. Life in the new province starts to fall apart with the murder of Dr. Susan Bouchard and connection with North Stream Oil become public. It connects Worth with his family's dark past whereby Jim Worth's son is accidentally shot in a gangland shoot out. Jim Worth reverts to his old ways and goes on a bender. In his drunken ramblings, he suffers blackouts, worse yet, he reverts to his alter-ego Jack Devlin, a ruthless character who lacks anything resembling remorse.
It's hard to imagine another actor taking this part. Possibly, Matthew McConaughey but he's too handsome to do it justice. Roth brings a lean, unscrupulous bent to the role. Likewise, Worth's long-suffering wife Angela and daughter Anna are superb in their roles. Plotting throughout series one and two is strong and consistent. Joffe, who is still in his mid-forties, has won awards for writing along with his roles as a producer and director.
Jim Worth's primary motivation is to protect his family. Revealed throughout the first series is Worth's past liaison as an undercover agent who lives in a relationship that results in the birth of a boy, Whitey (Oliver Coopersmith). Now an adult, Whitey travels to finish the botched job back in Britain... to kill Worth. Jim Worth in the multiple personalities of Jack Devlin, kills Whitey in season two without a second thought.
So, now the audience is asked to accept Jack Devlin as a thug with scant regard for property and even less for human life but clings to the noble inclination of saving his family in order to save himself.
Tin Star is interesting, and in many ways, a fascinating series of a man pushed to the limits and plunging the depths of alcohol-induced disparity. In many ways, it is a true reflection of headlines reported in the media—Crack addled man bashes newborn to death then knifes the infant's mother. But do we as an audience like Jim Worth?
Hitchcock once noted, the audience only likes the characters. The plot is there to give the characters something to talk about. This then is possibly Tin Star's weakness: we admire Tim Roth's portrayal of Jim Worth and Jack Devlin but we don't like him?
I'm a huge fan of Tim Roth. When I see his name connected with a movie or a television series, I'm on the couch ready to believe. While Roth does not disappoint in his role as Jim Worth, I wonder if writer Rowan Joffe is pushing the character trait too far.
Tin Star is a crime drama first aired in September 2017. It is gritty and gristly, and ghastly, and a whole bunch of adjectives you can poke at it. It opened in Britain to an audience of more than one million viewers. By episode ten, followers dropped to less than two-hundred-and-fifty thousand. It started me thinking, why.
Jim Worth is an undercover police detective formerly with the Metropolitan Police who moves his family from London to start a new life in Canada. He along with his wife Angela (Genevieve O'Reilly) and their troubled daughter Anna (Abigail Lawrie) settle in Little Big Bear where Worth becomes Chief of Police. The town is under the domineering influence of North Stream Oil. Chief of the company's security is Louise Gagnon played by Christopher Heyerdahl. Life in the new province starts to fall apart with the murder of Dr. Susan Bouchard and connection with North Stream Oil become public. It connects Worth with his family's dark past whereby Jim Worth's son is accidentally shot in a gangland shoot out. Jim Worth reverts to his old ways and goes on a bender. In his drunken ramblings, he suffers blackouts, worse yet, he reverts to his alter-ego Jack Devlin, a ruthless character who lacks anything resembling remorse.
It's hard to imagine another actor taking this part. Possibly, Matthew McConaughey but he's too handsome to do it justice. Roth brings a lean, unscrupulous bent to the role. Likewise, Worth's long-suffering wife Angela and daughter Anna are superb in their roles. Plotting throughout series one and two is strong and consistent. Joffe, who is still in his mid-forties, has won awards for writing along with his roles as a producer and director.
Jim Worth's primary motivation is to protect his family. Revealed throughout the first series is Worth's past liaison as an undercover agent who lives in a relationship that results in the birth of a boy, Whitey (Oliver Coopersmith). Now an adult, Whitey travels to finish the botched job back in Britain... to kill Worth. Jim Worth in the multiple personalities of Jack Devlin, kills Whitey in season two without a second thought.
So, now the audience is asked to accept Jack Devlin as a thug with scant regard for property and even less for human life but clings to the noble inclination of saving his family in order to save himself.
Tin Star is interesting, and in many ways, a fascinating series of a man pushed to the limits and plunging the depths of alcohol-induced disparity. In many ways, it is a true reflection of headlines reported in the media—Crack addled man bashes newborn to death then knifes the infant's mother. But do we as an audience like Jim Worth?
Hitchcock once noted, the audience only likes the characters. The plot is there to give the characters something to talk about. This then is possibly Tin Star's weakness: we admire Tim Roth's portrayal of Jim Worth and Jack Devlin but we don't like him?
