Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2650 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-04-13
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 300 minutes

Synopsis
Compelling, complex, gripping and genuinely disturbing, THE RED RIDING TRILOGY is a breathtaking, neo-noir epic based on horrific, factual events and adapted for the screen by Tony Grisoni (FEAR AND LAOTHING IN LAS VEGAS, TIDELAND) from David Peace's series of groundbreaking novels. The Red Riding Trilogy follows controversial stories revolving around the manhunt for the brutal Yorkshire Ripper. After a failed attempt to crack Fleet Street, a cynical journalist returns to his homeland of Yorkshire and finds himself assigned to report on the case of a local girl who has gone missing. But after her bizarrely mutilated body is discovered, he is thrown into a sleaze infested, nightmarish world of corruption. As the killer's identity remains a mystery, savage events spiral out of control, spanning generations and leading to a shocking climax.

The three films (1974, 1980 and 1983) are directed by three different filmmakers, Julian Jarrold (BECOMING JANE), James Marsh (Academy Award Winner 2009 for MAN ON WIRE) and Anand Tucker (HILARY AND JACKIE), and each boasts a fantastic British cast. Sean Bean (LORD OF THE RINGS) joins Mark Addy (THE FULL MONTY), Warren Clarke (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE), Paddy Considine (DEAD MAN'S SHOES), Andrew Garfield (BOY A), Rebecca Hall (VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA), David Morrissey (THE OTHER BOELYN GIRL) , Peter Mullan (TRAINSPOTTING) and Maxine Peake (TV's SHAMELESS).

Customer Reviews

Awesome
I caught this excellent trilogy on Channel 4 and loved its stark and brutal take on real events in 70's and 80's Yorkshire. It is based on the David "The Damned Utd" Peace quadrilogy of books. Great scripts and a huge cast of the best of British actors make this a must see. All three episodes are linked, linked by the same police officers covering their trail of corruption, violence and dealings with John Dawson (Sean Bean) the "property magnate" whose taste for young girls was their eventual undoing.

From 1974 when Vauxhall Viva driving crime reporter Edward Dunfold discovers more than is good for him, to 1980 when a Greater Manchester detective pays the price for crossing his Yorkshire "colleagues" on the Ripper case to 1983 when more children go missing and the scapegoats for earlier missing children are exposed for being just that, this is a hard and gritty set of films.

The performances are excellent all round. The plot twists and turns and goes back and forth so you have to concentrate but this is not a hardship because it is just so good and so compelling. Sean Bean is an excellent choice as the charismatic but evil Dawson, Warren Clarke is as watchable as ever, ditto Paddy Considine, Mark Addy, David Morrissey - I could go on, trust me. Be warned though, this is dark and often violent stuff -particularly the interrogation scenes in the "belly" - definitely not for the feint hearted.

You can rave on about your Sopranos, Heroes, CSI or whatever, but when British TV gets it right, nobody does it better. Watch them all close together and see why I gave it five stars.

Poor
These three films really do reveal the gap between quality written fiction and quality tv drama today. The richness, complexity and unrelenting horror of Peace's 'Red Riding' Quartet is reduced to a thin soup of his original ideas and themes here.

I'm not knocking the casting, the acting or the direction but how the books were adapted and what was criminally left out result in a drama that's merely ok, whereas if Channel 4 had the resolve and the courage they could have produced one of the finest and most terrifying TV dramas of all time.

I'll probably be written off as fanboy nut, too enamoured of the original books to see the quality of the TV adaptation but I don't think it's my loss. I really didn't think the TV adaptation worked or did Peace any favours. I had high expectations and maybe that's why I'm so critical, because I felt badly let down. I'd put this on par with Brian De Palma's unsatisfying, wasteful adaption of James Ellroy's 'The Black Dahlia'.

Kathryn Flett the TV columnist in The Observer, without irony, said she'd
not read the original 'Red Riding' books but that she reckoned this was the finest literary adaptation of 2009.

Do yourselves a favour and read Peace's original novels (in order). They're genuinely brilliant.

Riding High
I understand the comments below about this not being true to the literature of David Peace, but then its hard to judge a film against the book as it will always be lacking in certain departments. Kathryn Fletts comments on the 'literary adaption' were highly misguided but then i think she's a bit of a nutbar in an otherwise quality paper, so i don't really listen to what she has to say.

I'm a fan of literature first and foremost, way before TV/films BUT if i took the view that no good TV/films could come from literary adaptions then this genre, and TV in general, would have no future whatsoever. The fact is, its flourishing.

If Red Riding is to be knocked with the age old criticisms of film versions of books then it will always be a non starter. Therefore it has to be judged on its own merits and look at the strengths that it can bring to the table. And judged on its own merits, this is by far the best bit of TV that i have seen in the recent past. If this doesn't sit at the top of the TV pile, then what the hell does? F**k its relation to the books, this is what TV is all about.

It takes the strengths that TV has to offer, in creating mood, intensity and tension from the aesthetics of whats on your screen and uses them to tip top effect. The look and feel of the shows are a credit to the directors and the production staff as i was visually enthralled by them as well as being truly hooked by the pace, action, plots. All the stories are bleak and depressing but i couldn't keep my eyes of them.

TV at the moment is firmly focussed on the gritty series from the states such as the Wire, etc. This trilogy stands up to them no doubt. And in re-creating the mood and detail of the late 70's/early 80's northern mindset, this is closer to home and thus, for me, more instantly compelling.

Loved. It.