⭐8/10⭐
I’m still reeling from the finale of Inside Man. This 4 episode drama, starring David Tennant and Stanley Tucci, is a complex character study and an exploration of the darker side of humanity inside all of us.
The series opens with several seemingly disconnected people:
Grieff (Stanley Tucci) is a convicted murderer on death row. In his spare time, he takes private cases from civilians and uses his real world connections to solve crimes from within his jail cell.
Harry (David Tennant) is a kind-hearted vicar with a teenage son, a wife, and a nice home.
Janice (Dolly Wells) is his son’s math tutor, an astute and introverted woman.
Beth (Lydia West) is a crime journalist always on the hunt for her next story.
Through the course of the first episode, these people’s lives become intertwined in ways you couldn’t have imagined. Harry, in a desperate attempt to protect someone else, ends up locking Janice in his cellar. Beth, who only met Janice briefly, becomes nervous about her disappearance and goes to Grieff for help tracking her down.
All of the characters are in a race against time. Grieff, of course, has a looming execution. Beth is determined to rescue Janice. Janice, naturally, is doing everything she can to survive while Harry desperately tries to come to a satisfying and moral resolution to a problem of his own making.
Dolly Wells, David Tennant, and Stanley Tucci give incredible performances during each of the show’s episodes. Despite the horrible things that each character is resorting to, or has in the past, you find yourself silently rooting for each of them and desperate to find out how they can get out of this mess.
Beth also undergoes some character growth as she realizes the perpetrators of sensationalized crime that audiences and readers eat up are usually just vulnerable, scared humans on their worst days.
We can’t skip over Lindsey Marshal as Mary, the Vicar’s wife. Her performance is emotional, desperate and haunting. Her character begs you to answer the question: What would you do if you found your husband had locked a woman in the basement?
It’s rare that I am glued to a TV show these days – the presence of smartphones has drastically altered my focus, and two small kids keep me pretty occupied. But Inside Man was quietly riveting, to the point where I just could not look away.
Many movies and series focus on heroism within the ordinary. Inside Man, however, takes the common narrative that murderers are monsters and flips it, reminding the viewer that good and bad are never black and white, and that humans are inherently…. Human. Not good, not evil, just humans on a good or bad day.
The series is intense, I won’t lie. The content is disturbing and heavy. Tennant and Tucci are both convincing to a dangerous degree – you find yourself rooting for the show’s antagonists.
Inside Man is a drama that will make you think about morality and life in a new way. I highly recommend it if you’re not sensitive to some gore.
The Midnight Review 