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Too much of everything

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

An utterly captivating drama, perfectly executed over four episodes with not a single flaw to be found.Top-notch writing, precision directing, exemplary performances from the entire cast, seamless editing, with music and cinematography that intelligently don't make themselves noticed (so nothing showy or artsy, just excellent scene-setting) perfectly paced with an overall sense of all-round good storytelling.Every moment of this true-life drama was suffused with authenticity, integrity, and verisimilitude, with no audience manipulation to be detected (which doesn't mean it wasn't there; just that it was artfully and subtly done). This is a rare gem that is worth watching more than once, although the subject matter is grim. Top marks.

Phew! Am I ever glad I got out of that environment! Here I am sitting in Vancouver some 55 years after growing up in a council estate. An Estate that started off being a beautiful new village and then descended into a drug filled, violent, holding cell. Just like the ones portrayed in this series.Liverpool's always been a place where you have to know your boundaries, you don't venture into certain areas because of their reputations. If you don't go there then you''ll be OK, but the trouble is that the residents of some of the estates are roving marauders and you can be the innocent victim if you're in their pathway.This series portrays it brilliantly with all of the zeitgeist of Merseyside percolating throughout the story. I have to say that it doesn't seem to have changed that much since I left, middle class people are still wonderfully polite, most of the Estate denizens are warm and natural and the yobboes are just as ugly and nasty as I remember them.That antisocial streak in the underclass has been developed over years and years of unemployment, hand to mouth existence, hopeless futures and a hatred of the privileged classes. With this sort of framework things go wrong , as they did in this case, but the story is told in a way that highlights the huge chasm between the poor on the Estates and the rest of normal society. The absolute disdain for any form of authority is born out of a situation that says "How are you going to punish me any more than the punishment I get from living here already?" "I don't care what you do to me!"You'd be hard pressed to separate the professional actors from the locals who were recruited for the series, it is so very well done by everyone involved. You'll also be hard pressed not to get through this without openly crying at some of the heart wrenching scenes.Truly a great production

Few people in the United Kingdom will not have heard of the murder of Rhys Jones, an eleven-year-old boy from a middle-class family in Liverpool killed unintentionally by 16-year-old Sean Mercer, a low- level drug dealer who fired a revolver at two rival gang members over a postcode. It was the innocence of Rhys, a promising child with aspirations of playing for Everton Football Club that brought the attention of the national media on the case. The police were under tremendous pressure to bring the killer and those who supplied the gun to justice while the gang did their best to intimidate potential witnesses and pass off the murder onto a completely innocent party. This superb four-part drama, written by Jeff Pope tells the story of how those involved in both the murder and the concealing of the evidence were eventually brought to trial and the impact that Rhys death had on his parents, the investigating officers, and the local community. Bring the remorseless murderer to trial proved a complex issue, with two innocent families court in the middle of the lies of his alibi. The drama follows three narrative strands - The witness who was forced to hide the gun (an excellent performance from relative newcomer Michael Moran) and the family whose fragile son (An appropriately vulnerable performance from Nathan Clark-Smith) Rhys Parents (Sinead Keenan in her best ever performance as the Mum and Brian F O'Bryne finally getting the sort of meaty role he deserves) and the police investigation team led by Detective Dave Kelly (Stephen Graham whose versatility continues to expand with every performance) and DCI Mark Guinness (The always superb Stephen Walters in a very grounded role)Through these three narratives, we see the extreme pressures everyone was under both to stay in a wall of silence or break the case and bring the killers of Rhys to justice. One of the reasons this drama works so well is because of the generous four episodes, which gives adequate screen time to convey the truthfulness of each characters journey and the actor's performances which makes for a stronger production. It is good to see ITV drama giving this sort of material the running time that it so richly deserves. All the cast here doing a fantastic job including those portraying murderer Mercer his accomplices but the real stand out performance for me was that of the conflicted Kevin Moody (Portrayed by Michael Moran) the one witness the police depended on in order to conflict the intimidating Mercer.I read somewhere that the senior policewoman stated having watched this production that she was displeased with her portrayal in the show. I find it hard to believe that these scenes were in anyway fictional, knowing the pressure they were under to get a result in this case and how the upper echelons of the police always behave in such circumstances. To its credit LLB did not end with the conviction of those involved followed by a brief summary. A good number of scenes were shown after the case, covering the impact on the marriage of the parents and the other lives affected by the actions of Mercer. It is incredulous that the killer and his accomplices (Most of whom are now out of prison) had no remorse for the killing of Rhys whatsoever and it is this vagrant display of complete lack of empathy for causing the loss of life which makes this show have such wider viewing implications beyond the case it deals with. As Mrs Rhys says at one point 'Our Rhys was not in the wrong place at the wrong time, Sean Mercer was when he fired that gun' Essential and compelling viewing and an outstanding credit for everyone who worked on the production.

A story of gang violence people across the world are all to familiar with. Little 'Men' thinking they are 'big'..with iron on their hands.. sadly no amount of tattoos or owning a Glock..will ever make you a man, that take's hard work and guts.Brilliantly made and acted, if it was a Soap, no one would believe it. but unfortunately, yeah this happened. Hope our cousins in the USA will watch this and stop legally buying guns. They always end up for re- sale..in the wrong hands. #peace