Collision

This is a lovely piece of work from Anthony Horowitz. Douglas Henshall (Shetland) plays a police investigator assigned to determine the reason for a monumental crash on the A12. Henshall's character is just returning to duty at the beginning of the story, so one of the mysteries to be solved is the reason why he was on leave. All we know at the beginning is that his daughter is in a wheelchair and that he has a previous relationship with a woman from the traffic investigation unit. Among the colliders: a wealthy developer, a black couple in a romantic relationship, a music teacher who has changed his name, a smuggler, a man driving his very annoying mother-in-law and a personal assistant from a chemical company which appears to be up to no good.Henshall must determine what happened to cause the accident and solve the mysteries surrounding the individual participants in it. Thus, we get a number of flashbacks and titles such as "2:00 p.m. on the day of the collision". The writer's challenge is to take a momentary action and spread it and its causes/effects across five 45-minute episodes. Horowitz accomplishes this by developing fascinating characters with interesting stories, some baddies looming in the background and a pulsing score which, unfortunately, can sometimes be annoying.The key to the miniseries' success is Horowitz's writing and the presence of superb British character actors such as Kate Ashfield, Phil Davis, Paul McGann, Lucy Griffiths, David Bamber and Nicholas Farrell (the last of whom is curiously omitted from the opening credits and the DVD box credits).Bottom line: a wonderful opportunity for some serious binge-watching. Note to mystery fans—one of the rules of mystery writing is to give the readers all of the information available to the detective(s), so that they can figure things out for themselves without any deus ex machina last-minute insertions. In this case, the key mystery is what caused the accident and Horowitz tells the audience again and again, though they may still miss it. Very clever.

I had seen this Drama on PBS (in 2009 it turns out,) and kept thinking about it the past two years. But having accidentally deleted a raft of DVR recordings where it had been stored---I couldn't begin to remember its name or the year. Lo' and behold,in a search for Season 3 of "Endeavor", (not yet out,) there arrived those available DVD's, a Masterpiece Contemporary, " Collision". Reading the description I rejoiced it was found! As a drama/mystery it is intelligent, complex, deftly plotted; the concerns are of contemporary issues and the whole is carried by strong, interesting main characters and equally flawless performances by more 'minor' characters. I don't believe it would disappoint anyone who enjoys drama, and the drama of watching a mystery, NOT soaked in gruesome violence or blood, unravel.I was glad to see it again, over 2 nights, due to Amazon Prime's generous policy with streaming. K.B.

This is an interesting, though complex, British movie. Like a number of other British movies I have seen, this movieis very good at casting actors and actresses who are very believable in their roles, e.g., the older married coupleand the wife's ill mother. Furthermore, although the plot was complicated and the movie had many, many flashbacksto what at first appeared to be erratically different time periods prior to the main event - the eight car highwaycollision - and the numerous stories surrounding all of the parties involved, I still found it relatively easy to follow.I also was surprised by what proved to be the initial cause of the accident even though I had to admit that there werenumerous clues fairly presented throughout the entire movie. Finally, I thought that the way the movie dealt with thevarious issues raised among the various parties was very thought provoking and timely to courrent real life issues.

Very interesting story, or collection of stories all interrelated. This is about 3 hours in total, broken into two segments. It is worth the time to watch if you enjoy seeing how random incidents connect together. A summary: it is a story of an accident on a major highway with deaths and injuries. Each car has a story. Each story has a pre-accident and after-accident impact. If you don't like stories that jump around, you may not like this. However, it is organized and easy to follow when you go from one story to another during the investigation. And the relationships involved in those investigating the accident. Many surprises that you have to keep your eyes open to be prepared.I plan to watch again during the winter.

This Movie is A Great piece of UK ProductionEverything about it is Extremely HQ from the Out door Scenes, The Crash/Accident is very close to realThe Cast is GreatIf you are a fan of BBC America you will see a slew of familiar facesDouglas Henshall IMO is England's David Duchovny his acting is so Layered He has such a "Sadness"/Haunted thing going on with him!Kate Ashfield is also Perfectly Cast even though the Front of the Cover doesn't do her justice at all (She's very Beautiful and can act much better then most of the A List "Hot Chick" American Actress.The story starts out Slow But, picks up and gets very Deep, Compelling and thought provokingFor Die Hard Fans of BBC's Being Human both Lenora Crichlow (Annie) and Dean Lennox Kelly (Tully) are secondary characters.One Major Thing That makes this dvd Flawed is the Fact that PBS Released it Censored!?!?!?!But, yet on the back of the Case it Reads *Not Rated*I really enjoyed the Film But, the fact it's Censored drives me CrazyCut DVD 8.5/10Film itself is very good 9/10Wish BBC would Re-Release this Miniseries UNCUT under there BBC America Umbrella