I'm not sure what Coogan was hoping to gain here? Another shot at being recognised as a real actor?
I don't know, all seems a bit lurid and unnecessary. Everyone knows the story. Absolutely no one's going to be watching for "entertainment" value. So why?
Maybe Coogan just wanted a final chance to do more Saville impressions, which I'm sure he used to do while working on Spitting Image...
I think it’s actually a brave choice by Coogan to take on the role. Most actors like it safe so to play such a horrible despicable character takes guts. Kevin bacon is another actor comes to mind, brave choices he took over the years, sleepers, the woodsman ect.
Everyone doesn’t know the story. It goes from roots to the end and it’s a drama not a documentary
"brave choice", "takes guts"... Exactly the words Mr Partridge's ego would hope to hear one suspects.
As per my OP:-
Another shot at being recognised as a real actor?
Steve Coogan is a real actor. Sounds like your real problem is that you don’t rate him. That’s your opinion which you’re entitled to. I on the other hand was apprehensive when i saw the first scene and looked like Alan partridge playing dress up but after 5 mins he molds into the role and there isn’t any partridge nuances, he is very very good in the role. Sounds like you haven’t watched it so I would recommend you do so your opinion is based on what you have seen rather than how you feel about the project and Steve Coogan.
shareI very much rate Steve Coogan in his comedic roles.
As to him trying to be taken seriously in dramatic roles, that's another matter. But one relevant to what I was saying in the OP - Is that really the sole purpose of this? Basically an attempt by Coogan - using a very famous, much reviled figure - in attempt to garner personal gain? If so, that's in very poor taste...
But perhaps you've missed the point in recommending I should watch it. I was very much putting forward my opinion based upon how I feel about the questionable reasoning behind making this. Watching it wouldn't change that..
But, given that you have, what purpose do really think was served by making it? Other than in service of Coogan which you've already mentioned.
The Independent appears to agree:-
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-reckoning-review-steve-coogan-jimmy-savile-b2426367.html
"... A Parade Of Villainy Without A Point To Make"
Dramatising the facts and the background to real events can make them reach a wider audience. Lessons can be learned and hopefully mistakes avoided in the future. There a lots of other credible reasons to make this,
Your insinuation that it's only happening to serve Steve Coogan's career or ego, or desire to do a voice he once did over thirty years ago, is without any substance or precedent to back it up.
I think you are just uncomfortable about the subject matter and seeking to point the finger at someone for, reasons.
Your insinuation that it's only happening to serve Steve Coogan's career or ego, or desire to do a voice he once did over thirty years ago, is without any substance or precedent to back it up.
So you're underwhelmed by the script?
Oh well, must be a vanity/ego project by Coogan. Who wouldn't want to make themselves up as a notorious and reviled sex offender in order to boos their profile? Makes perfect sense.
Yes I do believe that dramatising the events surrounding Saville can and probably will help more people learn more about the issue. To pretend that TV shows of this type can't is perverse. You might judge that it is deficient or misses the mark in this respect. But that does not justify your creepy insinuations about the actor and the writer.
If I watch a movie about Hitler and the Nazis, and I don't think the acting and/or writing were good enough, that doesn't mean it's legitimate to question why anyone would be interested in making a movie about the Nazis and Hitler. You wouldn't claim that it's naive to think that a dramatisation of that period might not help teach more people more history.
So you're underwhelmed by the script?
So at worst you can call it a failure. It does not mean it's legitimate to question the point of making it. They didn't set out to make a failure.
What does the title have to do with your insinuation about your suspicion of Coogan's intentions?
This quote? "So sure, Coogan gets to go on Channel 4 news and talk about how he was weighed down by the gravitas of it all,..."
So you're annoyed that he "gets" to go on Channel 4 news? You don't find it credible that he felt the gravitas of it, after meeting with the victims who apparently left satisfied that it was worthwhile?
There's virtually no substance to what you're reaching for. Except that you didn't think The Reckoning was very good. (Or you've read that other people don't think it's very good, so that gives you a legitimate reason to be suspicious of Steve Coogan, somehow....)
By the way, newspaper TV and Film criticism is in the shitter. The Guardian only gives one or five stars to anything now. It's geared towards people 28 and under, who love to describe things that went over their head or just didn't get their attention away from their smartphones as "pointless" or "nothing happened"
So you're annoyed that he "gets" to go on Channel 4 news?
Yeah that must mean it’s a lurid and unnecessary exercise for Coogan to get to do his spitting image impression again and then pretend it had a purpose on C4 news.
sharemmm... Partially 🙄. But more so as an exercise in gaining acting credibility by riding on the shoulders of abuse victims.
shareBy doing his Spitting Image impersonation?
shareYou already said that and I replied "partially". Therefore not sure why you've repeated yourself?
shareSeems counter intuitive, and illogical: reviving a spitting image impression = acting credibility.
What are the other parts then?
Sorry, genuinely don't know what you're saying here anymore, so I don't know how to reply 👍
shareI'm saying the only part you will identify as the supposed reason for Coogan making this programme (in order to gain acting credibility by reviving his spitting image impression of Jimmy Saville) is, at best, illogical.
Kind of just sounds like you're projecting some faint suspicion and dislike for Coogan and his perceived "faux intellectualism" with faux intellectual questions about his motives.
Eh? Why doing you keep going on about his spitting image impression?
Do you really believe I think that's why he took the part? 🤔 Really?
I've already said - he's standing on their shoulders of abuse victims in order to try and gain some acting credibility. He's Forest Gumping it, in poor possible taste.
The Savile reference was simply to futher point out the distaste of that - given his past comedic association with the character.
I'm sure you noticed (but chose to ignore) that I didn't put a question mark after that, as it quite obviously wasn't a serious question. Most people reading that would have the intellect to appreciate I wasn't expecting Steve Coogan to be appearing in a serious dramatisation and throwing out Spitting Image style OTT impressions half way through! 😂
That's the only motivation you've offered. "Maybe Coogan just wanted a final chance to do more Saville impressions, which I'm sure he used to do while working on Spitting Image..."
If I shouldn't think that's what you think, then maybe don't type it.
What?!!
I have to repeatedly questioned the same motivation all the way up through this exchange! Namely that he absolutely - no doubt whatsoever - took the role in an attempt to gain acting credibility.
I can't really repeat that any further and we've now reached a point of too thin-ness, so I'll wrap this up here.
Good day to you Sir 👍
"He absolutely, no doubt whatsoever, took the role in an attempt to gain acting credibility."
Oh well. You should have just said you have no doubt.
It's thin because, like I said, there's no substance to your insinuation except perverse logic and weird suspicions.
Why don’t you actually watch the programme? This is a board to discuss the actual show in question yet your arguments that it’s not good have been about Steve Coogans ego and plucking reviews from other sources. Put your phone away, put some time aside, watch it and come back to the board with a valued constructive opinion that’s valid due to you actually watching the show that this board is linked to
shareEh, I've already answered you re this point further up. Please feel free to answer there.
(You are aware that you are responding on a thread which was started BEFORE the show aired right?)
Thanks 👍
Yeah you haven’t watched it
shareThanks for your "valued constructive opinion"...
😂
Well then watch it. Ok your post was before now you have the opportunity to watch and judge for yourself.
shareThat's irrelevant to what I was discussing though and I've already said that to you further up.
You have literally, and non constructively, chosen to ignore that and attempted to change my thread to be a discussion over whether it / Coogan were any good, which is an entirely different question to whether the show has any purpose. Go and make your own thread if you want to discuss that...
I was genuinely interested in YOUR opinion - having watched it - as to what purpose you believed it served but you have chosen to ignore that... which just makes me believe you can't actual state one.
The purpose is to fill time in the schedule and pretend to be "profound".
It's just BBC going through the motions as usual. Like you said we all know the story. I was really hoping when they said they were "postponing" it that meant it wouldnt air at all!
Who is the "we all" in "we all know the story"?
I know people who wonder why Saville wasn't immediately under suspicion from everyone just by his appearance. So clearly not everybody knows the story.
I know, but you can’t talk to these people they argue for the sake of it
shareThey're talking as if the idea making a dramatisation of a crime and a criminal public figure from decades past that has affected hundreds of people is somehow perverse or extraordinary. It's been the bread and butter of mainstream TV forever.
share"I know people who wonder why Saville wasn't immediately under suspicion from everyone just by his appearance"
Um, that's clearly a comment they're making with the knowledge of what he did... moron!
Your point being?
If people who weren't around at the time are incredulously asking why people didn't suspect this guy and catch him decades before he was exposed, just from his apperance. then clearly there is a reason foo making dramatisations which depict the circumstances in which he got away with it for so long.
People who had never even heard of Saville until after he was dead and people came forward.
If people who weren't around at the time are incredulously asking why people didn't suspect this guy and catch him decades before he was exposed, just from his apperance. then clearly there is a reason foo making dramatisations which depict the circumstances in which he got away with it for so long.
LOL. He didn't get away with just for "so long", he got away with it permanently. Hence the legitimate questioning of the purpose of this "show".
This literally makes no sense. How does Saville not getting caught while alive raise the question of the point of this programme? He escaped justice so there's no point in making a drama about it? Utter nonsense.
You have a program showing a guy who didn't get caught, abusing kids and getting away with it. Did you, personally, find "entertainment" in that?
I suggested no such thing you fucking piece of shit.
If people who weren't around at the time are incredulously asking why people didn't suspect this guy and catch him decades before he was exposed, just from his apperance. then clearly there is a reason foo making dramatisations which depict the circumstances in which he got away with it for so long.
You made up the part about teaching people not to judge on appearances. I mentioned appearances because people, who aren't familiar with the case, often highlight them. Therefore, "we" don't all know the story. Which is the basis for you conjuring up a lot of idle bullshit about the purpose of the show and Coogan's acting in it.
share"... and Coogan's acting in it."
LOL - I knew it! 😂
I said just above that you wouldn't be able to help yourself but circle back to that same point... and one that I already stated my position on in the OP despite you thinking you're gaining some amazing triumph by repeatedly going back to it...
Anyway, nothing further to add here - I literally can't argue (not that I want to, was just looking for a reasoned intellectual discussion on the point of this show) with someone who can't even stand by something they've said, written down in back and white.
Good day to you Sir 👍
Why should it be in any way remarkable that I allude to your OP and the idle insinuations in it that you've failed to substantiate with anything sensible or logical?
You're not looking for anything reasonable. You're just fishing for an endorsement of your loose suspicions about Coogan "gaining" from a show you've decided has no other purpose.
Do you do this for all real crime dramas? Do they all confuse you as to why people make them and/or watch them?
I made it through 2 episodes before becoming completely bored of it
the things I took from it
1 the BBC is desperate
2 the BBC lives in the 1950s
3 despite being directed by different people, somehow every single BBC "drama" seems to be identical
I get what op is saying and i do believe the prime motivation for Coogan taking the role is Dramatic cred. What the Motivation for the BBC was is something else.
Think about it although he's known for comedies he has for years been doing Dramatic on the side. He even plays it up on the Trip the frustrated Actor dying to be taken seriously but stuck doing Comedy.
This is the case for most of them. Robin Williams in one of the few to have successfully transitioned over and won awards in contrast to how he was when he started. Same with Jim Carrey who didn't manage it. But both these guys were as goofy as you can get but both wanted to be ultra serious. Even Will Ferrell tries it now and then, no matter how childish they are on screen when they get home they dream about being Marlon Brando
Trouble is the public struggle to take them seriously because all they see is Mork, Ace, Partridge and that essence will always be there in their speech and face so finding that hybrid bridge film is so important.
The Winterbottom Films are kind of that very well made but he is still a little bit goofy in them so i have no doubt he saw this as a perfect vehicle.
I wouldn't even be surprised if he had a hand in pitching the idea in the first place. This film was guaranteed to be watched by millions and it's made in a way that screams give me a BAFTA.
Other than that what purpose was there other than reinforcing the narrative that he was a lone wolf who played everyone and that the BBC were naïve but ultimately blameless
you're probably correct. for SC it's "look at his range"...for the BBC it's "the licence fee is paying for this, look how clean we're being about what happened". for anyone watching not directly involved it's "fgs, more BBC droll"
share