sun 27/07/2025

tv

The Instigators, Apple TV+ review - Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are back on the Beantown beat

Adam Sweeting

This heist-orientated black comedy could appeal to fans of the likes of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven or the same director’s Out of Sight, without ever quite matching their zip and sparkle. But there are enough loud bangs and big bucks to provide an entertaining night in (presupposing there are suitable lubricants to hand), though you wouldn’t think so from some of the ferociously negative reviews it’s been receiving.

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Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple, Sky Documentaries review - the New Jersey rocker with many strings to his bow

Adam Sweeting

The music scene on the New Jersey shore in the late Sixties and early Seventies must have been a thing of wonder, a kind of Merseymania-on-Sea. Its mix of soul, R&B and primitive rock’n’roll fuelled countless groups, not least Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and eventually Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Stevie Van Zandt was a key member of both of those outfits.

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Time Bandits, Apple TV+ review - larky expanded rerun of the Gilliam/Palin classic

Helen Hawkins

“Family-friendly fun” seems to have mutated over the years into elaborate films featuring high-octane animation, starry voicing and often mushy sentiments. In older children’s TV, gone are the days of actual humanoids mucking about with stun guns. Only Doctor Who has continued to deliver the teatime goods.  

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Lady in the Lake, Apple TV+ review - a multi-layered Baltimore murder mystery

Adam Sweeting

Laura Lippman’s source novel for Apple’s new drama became a New York Times bestseller when it was published in 2019, and director Alma Har’el’s screen realisation has fashioned it into an absorbing dive into various social, racial and political aspects of mid-Sixties America.

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The Jetty, BBC One review - lowlife in a Northern town

Adam Sweeting

Jenna Coleman seems to pick her roles with care, whether it’s Queen Victoria, the girlfriend of mass murderer Charles Sobhraj in The Serpent, or “occult detective” Johanna Constantine in The Sandman, but her antennae may have been a bit awry when she climbed aboard this one.

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The Turkish Detective, BBC Two review - a bad business in the Bosphorus

Adam Sweeting

Any show making its debut in the midst of Wimbledon and the Euro-football, plus a spectacular performance by Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone, is likely to be gasping for air, and BBC Two’s ditzy new cop series didn’t so much charge out of the blocks as trip over them. Masterminded by Ben Schiffer, the eight-part series is based on Barbara Nadel’s Inspector Ikmen novels, which are much loved by their readers.

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The Night Caller, Channel 5 review - all he hears is radio ga ga

Adam Sweeting

Showing over four consecutive nights, Night Caller is a stripped-down psychological thriller which steadily boils up to a conclusion which is both shocking and tragic.

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Presumed Innocent, Apple TV+ review - you read the book and saw the movie...

Adam Sweeting

Scott Turow published his cunningly-wrought legal thriller in 1987, and Alan J Pakula’s powerful movie version, starring Harrison Ford, appeared in 1990. Enough time has elapsed, perhaps, for Apple TV’s revised version of Presumed Innocent for the streaming age.

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Eric, Netflix review - a fairytale of New York

Adam Sweeting

New York in the 1980s is the setting for Abi Morgan’s new six-part drama, and it’s a city riddled with squalor, homelessness, racism and rampant crime. The Aids pandemic is also beginning to rear its hideous head.

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Tokyo Vice, Series 2, BBC iPlayer review - an exciting ride that stretches credibility

Adam Sweeting

It’s entirely fitting that Jake Adelstein should have a poster for All the President’s Men on the wall of his Tokyo apartment, since it was the filmic apogee of the notion of journalist as superstar.

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