Author: Mark Glass

“Backwoods Crime” – TV Series Review

A scene from the Austrian TV series “Backwoods Crime.” on MHz Choice. Courtesy of MHz Choice

Some time ago, I reviewed ten mostly-unrelated tele-films from Austria, streaming on MHz Choice under the umbrella of “Backwoods Crime.” The casts, plots and locales are all different, just sharing the common thread of murders in the boondocks being handled in an intelligent, modest-action manner by whichever cops are called upon. All were worthwhile, to varying degrees. Not a lemon in the lot.

“Der Schutzengel” is the first of nine now being released for streaming under that heading. This one opens 12 years before its main action, with young Martin (Michael Steinocher) having his marriage proposal deflected by his girlfriend. She says they’re too young, but doesn’t fully close that door. We learn she disappeared shortly thereafter, with her whereabouts still unknown.

A dozen years later, Martin returns to that town as a police officer, planning to move into his old house with his new squeeze. But he starts having flashbacks to the unfinished business of that dangling proposal. Those mainly consist of the eye candy we get from Martin having recorded his then-topless intended, expecting a yes to be preserved for posterity.

Martin’s first case involves the long-term housemaid of the local gentry found dead in the pond where she regularly swam. It looks like an accident, but that wouldn’t give us 90 minutes of story line, would it? Once they determine it was murder, despite any apparent motives,questions arise as to whether it relates to that earlier disappearance, which has been gnawing at Martin ever since.

The case is overseen by Detective Paul Werner (Franz Karl), who methodically and calmly unravels the mystery(ies). There’s nothing glamorous about the process, but Karl’s low-key performance, balancing the sleuthing with sensitivity, is a pleasure to watch. He’s apparently played cops before, but this character deserves more chances to shine. Give the dude a real series, folks. Then be sure to send it along for streaming on our side of the pond.

The consistency of the quality throughout these ten gives good reason to expect more of the same from the other forthcoming nine.

That’s my last review for 2025. Happy New Year, everyone!

“Backwoods Crime: Der Schutzengel,” in German with English subtitles, streams on MHz Choice starting Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

A scene from the Austrian TV series “Backwoods Crimes.” Courtesy of MHz Choice. Copyright: ORF/Mona Film/Tivoli Film/Helga Rader

“Good People” – TV Miniseries Review

A scene from the French/Belgian TV miniseries “Good People.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

“Good People” (“Des Gens Bien”) is a French/Belgian miniseries that plays out as a droll dramedy arising from a scam. The title denotes the fact that good people can do uncharacteristically bad things with what seem like good intentions. They can also rope in other good people who mean well.

We start with watching Tom (Lucas Meister) stage an auto accident in which he barely survives, though his wife, Linda (Berangere McNeese), is burned to death. We soon learn why he did it – extreme financial hardship. Then about halfway through the six episodes, we learn how. The motive is to cash in on a big life insurance policy but events, as they must, soon spin out of control.

One cop, Philippe (Michael Abiteboul), smells a rat, suspecting the accident wasn’t what it seemed. But his boss, Roger (veteran character actor Dominique Pinon), who knows Tom very well, refuses to let him investigate. Roger had lost his wife in a similar crash around that same stretch of roadway, and is completely closed to any other explanation. There’s also an obstacle of cross-border jurisdiction limiting Philippe’s efforts.

Linda and Tom owned a tanning parlor that was failing. They were on the verge of losing that, plus their home and cars, having exhausted the limits of their credit. The members of a local church kicked in a lot of money its members could little afford to help them stay afloat by updating the equipment but it wasn’t going to be enough. Thus was the plot hatched… with the best of intentions.

Among the things that go wrong, Philippe won’t give up his probing. Linda’s cousin Serge (Peter Van den Begin), a hulking thug recently paroled from prison, tumbles onto the plan and forces his way in for the payoff. Tom’s highly devout sister (Gwen Berrou), who’d convinced the churchgoers to help him and Linda, sees something she shouldn’t, and a high-profile person accidentally involved in the intrigue brings far more attention to the case than anyone could have expected.

The tenor set by the series’ trio of writers can best be described as a darkly comic, slowly unfolding farce. The cast is excellent all around, especially shining as the plan unravels and actions become more desperate. The plot includes a few surprises in what happens to whom. Van den Begin really dominates in his scenes presenting Serge’s stupidity and conscience-free brutality. Pinon, who has been such an asset as a regular in the recently-reviewed cop series “Cassandre, gets too little screen time in this one. There’s also a brief role for Corinne Masiero, who headlined one of my favorite light crime series from ANY country, “Captain Marleau.”

My frequent complaint about series that run longer than needed is mercifully NOT applicable to this one. The half-dozen 50-minute episodes befit the material. The series ends without major cliffhangers but does leave a few open questions. One source indicates they meant it to run three seasons, which may not occur, since this one aired in 2022. I’d welcome more if that happens, but am quite satisfied with where they ended this production.

“Good People” (originally “Des Gens Bien”), in French with English subtitles, begins streaming MHz Choice on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025.

A scene from the French/Belgian TV miniseries “Good People.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

“Tandem: Return to the Past” – TV Series Review

Astrid Veillon and Stéphane Blanca as Soler and Marchal (center), in the French TV series “Tandem: Return to the Past.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

“Tandem: Return to the Past” (“Retour vers le passe”) is a long-running light French police procedural that draws to an end after 85 episodes that aired from 2016-2024. I reviewed the first dozen or so long ago, and don’t feel I’ve missed a lot of character progression in the interim. The squad and families have remained largely intact. Ex-spouses and colleagues Lea (Astrid Veillon) and Paul (Stephane Blancafort), the lead cops in the series, are getting along well and are possibly on the verge of re-tying the old knot. Their son Thomas (Titouan Laporte) has also become an officer. Things are going smoothly all around.

Well, that changes dramatically when a floating body turns up in the nearby river, minus one arm. Lea and Paul are vacationing with the whole family in the boonies when they find what turns out to be the missing appendage – miles from the other remains – perched atop a cairn, imbuing it with even greater significance.

They soon learn that both parts of the stiff came from a woman who was Lea and Paul’s bestie at the academy 20 years earlier. She was believed to have committed suicide. But the way her remains were unearthed and arranged, followed by the corpse of one of their old instructors found lying in her open and recently-vacated grave, point to our protagonists being targeted to revisit the old case, since someone apparently has an ax to grind, and thinks they’re the ones to handle it. Or, they might even be getting targeted, in a more menacing sense of the word.

Events in this two-part episode move along at a good pace, with humor and a few subplots fleshing out the complete picture and moving all towards closure. The scenery is lovely, as are the old buildings featured in much of the action set in Montpellier and its surroundings in southeastern France. The cast is almost overrun with likable characters. Lea and Paul’s faces – especially when smiling – radiate warmth and sincerity that works well with colleagues, witnesses and suspects.

I’m sure all who saw the previous 84 will feel as if they’re saying goodbye to old friends. I’ll probably go back and catch the ones I’ve missed. (Since writing this, I already have watched most of them; good stuff continued in the interim.)

No more coming without spoilers. Suffice it to report that all wraps up in a satisfactory manner, with no cliffhangers or unanswered questions.

“Tandem: Return to the Past” (originally “Retour vers le passe”), in French with English subtitles, begins streaming MHz Choice on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025.

Stephane BLANCAFORT (Paul Marchal), and Astrid VEILLON (Lea Soler), in the French TV series “In Tandem: Return to the Past.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT – Review

A scene from SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. Courtesy of Cineverse

Are you feeling a bit of déjà vu from seeing the title SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT? That’s probably because there have been a morgueful of sequels and derivatives from the original 1984 Christ-X-mas splatter-fest of the same name. Besides its five sequels, and a 2012 remake (just called SILENT NIGHT), plus a slew of other Seasonal slasher sprees like SANTA’S SLAY (my favorite title), NIGHTMARE ON 34TH ST., SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT, and AXEMAS, to name a few. The juxtaposition of innocent holiday cheer and gruesome gore makes for a proven formula.

So, this one is a reboot of the original, with eight-year-old Billy horrified by the sight of his parents being slain by a psycho in a Santa suit (I wonder if Bruce Wayne would have turned into a serial killer instead of Batman if his parents’ murderer had been similarly attired? Discuss among yourselves.) Flash-forward to adult Billy (Rohan Campbell) doing a mashup between the original plot and “Dexter.” He’s been traveling around for years, guided by a voice in his head (Mark Acheson) like Dexter’s “dark passenger” who teaches him to recognize the bad people they’ll target for their December sprees, plus mentoring on how to do it without getting caught. That detection is like a Spidey Sense, but for a significantly different purpose. Bullies, corrupt officials, cheating spouses and others belonging on the Naughty List, including the occasional supremely bratty kid, are all fair game for Billy’s Santa suit and his axe or other weapon of “mess” destruction.

In this current December, he arrives in a small Wisconsin town and is quickly drawn to a babe named Pamela (Ruby Modine; yes, Matthew’s daughter). He starts working with her in her dad’s Christmas shop. Billy has an Advent Calendar to keep track of his killing regimen by putting a drop of each victim’s blood under the flap for the day, much like Dexter’s collection of blood drops on microscope slides. He’s also got a full closet of Santa suits and beards, because each gets soaked in more blood than anyone could clean before the next visit. Or ever.

The killings are plentiful and grisly, with some darkly comic aspects running throughout, so no gore-fest fan will be disappointed. There are a couple of highlights, including a murder montage and a group scene on top of the standard one-on-ones. But if you’re hoping for nudity in the titillation mix, look elsewhere – like the 2012 remake, which featured flashes of boobage.

Campbell looks like a young Tom Berenger, playing his character close to the vest. He’s devoted to his “calling”, but starting to chafe at the rootless lifestyle, especially when his interest in Pamela starts appearing to be mutual.  His killings come from a righteous determination to remove the scumbags from each year’s venue, rather than sadistic glee. Ms. Modine plays a much more interesting role. She reminds me of a young Juliette Lewis, simultaneously sweet, sexy and borderline crazy, with the latter two mostly bubbling under the surface – all in one petite package.

So, if you’re seeking respite from the ubiquitous holiday music and décor providing a backdrop for miles and miles of mindless smiles, here’s a quick fix that oughta do the trick.

SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT opens in theaters on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

“Marion” – TV Series Review

“Marion” is a police procedural drama series from French TV, and a perfect example of why I try to see a whole season before reviewing it, rather than assuming the rest from a partial release for screening. This one’s set in Paris, with Edwidge Marion (Louise Monot) taking over the small squad of railway detectives operating out of La Gare du Nord. The six-episode season consists of three two-part cases. As usual, the series combines its crimes du jour with romances, personal stories and evolving relationships among the principals and their families. This one is somewhat heavier on baggage (not the kind passengers carry) and backstories than most, with a disorienting number of flashbacks. Each pair of episodes had a different author… unfortunately.

In the first offering, an attack on a deaf lad in a train station mens’ room leads down a rabbit hole (rather literally and figuratively) to an extensive series of gruesome crimes, with a laudable amount of suspense anchoring a few romantic subplots. The latter brings a couple of dimly-lit boinks, but no exposed naughty bits in Laetitia Kugler’s well-crafted script.

My appreciation of the writing started fading with the next duo, written by Caroline Ophelie. A prisoner is killed while being transferred through the train station for medical reasons under Marion’s watch. She is unfairly blamed for the screw-up in protection. The victim had allegedly cached away $11 million from a heist, and the cops really wanted to learn where it was hidden before he croaked. The investigation turns up several suspects, and includes a couple of twists, but the path to the goal line seemed relatively stilted, compared to the first mystery.

Then it bottomed out with Round Three, penned by David Bourgie. In this one, Marion is shot in the head at the beginning. While in a coma, her body disappears from the hospital. The search leads to a bizarre set of circumstances, ranging from mummies of recent origin to a far-fetched set of psychological and logistic elements. Even worse, numerous actions of the protagonists are ridiculously inept and foolhardy, failing to even consider a blatantly obvious possible solution to the grisly crimes. This descended all the way to annoying as it unfolded.

(Side note – I just realized this series offers a double boost for feminism. Most of the best sleuthing comes from the female detectives. And the two women wrote better scripts than the guy.)

All things considered, I still recommend watching the first two or four episodes. Skip the third set (unless you want to confirm the basis for my displeasure. Or, you might even make it a drinking game, downing a shot each time one of the good guys does something stupid.) And it’s OK to hope for a second season. Marion and her crew have enough appeal to warrant further attention… if they line up the quality of writing the cast deserves.

Marion, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice as of December 9, 2025.

2 Out Of 4 Stars

SPEED TRAIN – Review

A scene from SPEED TRAIN. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment

It’s been just over 30 years since Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves found themselves trapped in a bus that couldn’t go slower than 55 without going BOOM! in the original SPEED. Since then, there have been a ton of movies based on comparable perils in every sort of public transportation vehicle, with the possible exception of pedicabs and rickshaws (no one could cover EVERY action movie from Asia). The title of SPEED TRAIN tells you most of what to expect.

In a high-tech near future, featuring rapid rail transit and brain implants that can enhance all sorts of learning and functions, we meet a bunch of people in a mostly talky first half hour. One car on this train’s maiden voyage (Do trains have voyages? If not, insert your own alternative noun.) contains shackled violent prisoners being shipped to the death chamber. The rest are occupied by the usual assortment of random civilians, with focus on a pair of cheerleading coaches and their two captains heading for a big competition.

Unbeknownst to all is that Loklin (Louis Mandylor) designed much of that tech, but got shafted on the many millions he should have received. He’s set up a high-priced pay-to-play game, in which rich jerks can remotely control the body of a designated prisoner, who is let loose to fight or kill anyone in their path. He’s also taken command of the train, speeding it up to Doomsday velocity as it crosses the country.

The degree of harm the thugs and their masters do is surprisingly limited by unexpected fighting skills among the regular passengers – especially the cheer coach who is ex-military (Scout Taylor-Compton) and an Interpol agent with family problems. The players aren’t all that interesting, but the action is first-rate. Plenty of hand-to-hand mayhem and bloodshed. Louis Mandylor is a hard sell as a Lex Luthor-level genius, but he does well showing the deranged evil side of his character.

A side note you may also find interesting. I grew curious after seeing Louis in a lot of films lately. He’s a year younger than his brother, Costas. Both have around 170 screen credits, and 17 or 18 awards and nominations for their work. Costas has more total screen time, since one of his credits was for 88 episodes of the fine TV series “Picket Fences.” Louis’ resume includes more off-screen activity, with 13 gigs as director and 16 as a producer. Their family gatherings must a hoot of (I hope) friendly competition.

The performances are competent. Production values are laudable, with appealing sets and graphics keeping the confined setting from feeling claustrophobic. The script falls short on developing personalities for empathy, and has a few plot holes, but delivers on brisk pace and well-staged action once that phase begins. For mindless escapism, it’s a reasonable time investment.

SPEED TRAIN opens in select theaters and streaming on demand on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

UNIVERSAL – Review

Joe Thomas as Leo, in UNIVERSAL. Courtesy of Subspin/Dominion 3.

Every once in a blue moon, two or more young adults can go to a cabin in the woods and not be besieged by cannibals, psychos or demons. Thank goodness! So long as threats to life and limb aren’t inevitable, city folk might still venture out into nature occasionally, thereby supporting rural economies. But such apparent safety is no guarantee of grist for an entertaining non-gory movie.

In UNIVERSAL, writer/director Stephen Portland delivers a nerd-fest of science and computer stuff, presented by a cast of three. Leo (Joe Thomas) and Naomi (Rosa Robson) are an overworked academic couple who vow to unplug COMPLETELY for a weekend to just stay focused on each other. He’s a geneticist on the verge of some big breakthrough in understanding more about DNA that could explain much of the universe and the nature of our existence. He’s also under pressure from his funding source to deliver something tangible ASAP; Naomi’s field is different, but close enough to understand his project. He’s been avoiding a persistent fanboy named Ricky, who claims to have helpful information.

Soon after arrival, their solitude is shattered when Ricky shows up. The fanboy turns out to be an attractive, determined young woman (Kelley Mack) with boundless energy and no sense of boundaries. Her social skills are severely lacking (probably somewhere on the high-functioning end of the spectrum; no mention of whether she was vaccinated), but her findings may significantly advance Leo toward his pressing goal. Naomi resents the hell out of the intrusion that decimates their promise to each other. But Ricky’s urgency draws both in, making the computer analysis of her data the centerpiece of their weekend, and our movie experience.

Maybe I’m not the best audience for this film, since the science and its implications largely flew over my head. Every scene occurs in and around the cabin, as if it could have been adapted from the stage. The dialog-heavy script, with little visual variety, makes MY DINNER WITH ANDRE seem like an action-adventure flick. The main source of suspense comes from Kelley Mack’s character. Is she really just a devoted scientist, or does she have some more sinister agenda? If they find a big breakthrough, will they agree on how to claim credit and monetize the results?

No more is possible without spoilers, other than the sad note that Mack died of cancer shortly after filming, making this her last on-screen appearance. Besides serving as a producer here, she brought an enigmatic sparkle that energized what could have been a total snooze-fest. It’s a shame we won’t be able to see more from her.

UNIVERSAL is available On Demand starting Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars

TIME TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS – Review

A scene from British sci-fi comedy TIME TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment

TIME TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS  is a droll British sci-fi comedy is low budget, low key and low delivery, under-serving a high concept. Writer/director Chris Reading started with an amusing twist on the time-travel milieu. Two rather dim-witted women (Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson) who own a dowdy resale shop stumble across a small vehicle that was dumped in an alley by its disenchanted inventors, who never quite mastered its time-hopping capabilities. The ladies use it to snatch clothes and minor objects from earlier eras to upgrade the inventory of their failing business, filling the humble rented space to the rafters with relics of affordable consumer value. No heists. No cash grabs. Just stuff that wouldn’t be missed much by its owners.

The haul includes videotapes of a public-access version of Mr. Wizard starring two guys (Johnny Vegas and Kiell Smith-Bynoe) who happen to have been the machine’s inventors. They are now part of a club of eccentric wannabe inventors with what could have been a charming cast of oddballs. The right cast was in place, but without the right writing to let them shine.

Although the bones were there for a delightful romp, the script failed to deliver the goods. Some of the best-known actors – Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Jane Horrocks – were underutilized. What we end up with could have been called BILLIE AND TEDDIE’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, if the temporal sojourners weren’t named Ruth and Megan. Their visits to earlier times, ranging from the age of dinosaurs to recent decades, are among the film’s best moments. But they were too small a percentage of the running time. One long sequence in a sort of time-warp limbo was intriguing – as if an ALICE IN WONDERLAND style of encounter had been written and directed by Terry Gilliam.

Budget limitations are obvious, and perhaps should be used to cut this production more slack. Time-travel shows are inherently fraught with logical issues, even when played for laughs. This one avoided some of the usual traps, but became more annoying than engaging as events unfolded. Too much petty quibbling among, and bad decisions by, the principals for entertainment value.

TIME TRAVEL IS DANGEROUS opens in select theaters and on-demand on Friday, Nov. 21, 2025.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars

“Master Crimes: Season 2” – TV Series Review

In  “Master Crimes: Season 2”,  Professor Arbus and her posse of post-grads return for six more 45-minute episodes of solving murders via psychology and logic, usually differing from where the available clues would lead normal police forces, in this light French procedural. The main cast returning for Season 2 includes Muriel Robin as Professor Louise Arbus, Anne Le Nen as Barbara Delandre, Olivier Claverie as Oscar Rugasira, Victor Meutelet as Samuel Cythere, Astrid Roos as Mia Delaunay, Nordine Ganso as Boris Volodine, Thaïs Vauquières as Valentine Vallée, Michaël Cohen as Théodore Belin, Léon Durieux as Grégoire, and Nicolas Briançon as Pierre Delaunay.

https://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2024/09/master-crimes-season-1-tv-series-review/

The crimes and twists are comparable in quality to the first season. The humor is somewhat more prevalent, as Arbus and Delandre have become friendly, and comfortable with each other’s skill sets. There are also more romantic and other types of intrigue among all the principals that unfold throughout the season. The most notable arc is for Valentine, the perky social media maven, who adds new dimensions, tinged with mystery, to her character. We also learn a lot more about Mia’s backstory and its residual complications.

As far as principal plots in the stand-alone episodes are concerned, they open with a nekked dead guy, posed like The Thinker in a gallery (no naughty bits shown on-camera). He’d been the model for a small art therapy class of fresh-faced suspects. The second begins with a stiff in a cave within a hippie-style, self-sufficient eco-community, replete with secrets beneath its Kumbaya façade. Then we go to a dead dude in a wolf mask, laid out in a pet cemetery. He was the founder of a successful dating site that matches couples, using their pets as the prime indicator of compatibility.

Then a rich young woman who embarrassed her family by running her own sex site is found dead in her horse’s stall of the family stable. Obsessive fan, or family squabble behind the crime? The next involves the preserved head of a woman, posed in a coffin that’s part of the décor in an Escape Room adventure. The last starts with a burned body in a burned circle in the guy’s back yard. It looks like some sort of ritual, which is confirmed by other boldies appearing in the same charred condition at the same time.

There’s no need to binge this one, since each is a new crime. In fact, it might be better not to. Arbus’ well-earned aura of wry superiority straddles the fence between amusing and smugness. Too much of that too close together might grate on some viewers. As before, all the crimes are solved, as are most of the subplots. No cliffhangers, though the finale dangles a new matter begging for a third season. I truly hope it shall come to pass.

“Master Crimes: Season 2”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice on November 11, 2025.

3 Out Of 4 Stars

PRISONER OF WAR – Review

I should start this review of PRISONER OF WAR by declaring myself to be a solid Scott Adkins fan. His martial arts movies – even the cheapies – reliably deliver on the action sequences that motivate our eyes to look at his screen time. And rightly so. He’s pursued training in multiple disciplines since he was 10, which was more than a decade before he began acting. His career has placed him mostly in hero roles (including a few action comedies), though he’s excelled as a villain, too. He played a brutal, racist GI in IP MAN 4: THE FINALE (2019); He was comically unrecognizable, yet surprisingly agile, as a crime boss in a massive fat suit opposite Keanu Reeves in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 (2023). He’s probably best known for playing Yuri Boyka in three of the four flicks in the UNDISPUTED franchise – the ones earning higher ratings than the original, which was before moving to Russia and adding the Boyka character.

But my favorites are his one-man army gigs as the tough hero overcoming long odds. This film is not the ideal vehicle for showing his chopsocky chops. It’s a rather standard POW tale, set in WW II, as Scott is a downed RAF fighter pilot captured by the Japanese in 1942 and held in a Philippine jungle prison camp under the thumb of a sadistic officer. He and a handful of fellow captives must endure extreme hardships, tortures and executions before the inevitable escape. The only suspense is who else will join him, plus a little novelty in how they do it.

I say little suspense because the opening scene is in 1950, when Scott strolls into a karate dojo and beats up the whole school, looking for the former commandant who runs it. That sequence is reminiscent of times that stars like Donnie Yen and Bruce Lee did the same to prove Chinese Kung Fu is better than Karate, and the occupying Japanese are not their superiors. Scott’s agenda is more personal. Before that plays out further, they quickly cut back to his plane crashing in the jungle and fill in the gap from there on.

There’s nothing special about the performances or the plot, the latter of which is as generic as the title. The character types, conflicts and strategies are quite familiar to action fans. Scott’s fights, as expected, are the highlights, along with a twist at the end that upgrades the package.  If you’re looking for escapism about an escape, this one will serve quite adequately, albeit less than top of the line.

PRISONER OF WAR, mostly in English, debuts on Blu-ray™ & DVD November 11, Veterans Day, from Well Go USA.

2.5 stars out of 4