Stream On! ‘Luther’ prequel, sequel: how the mighty have ‘Fallen’
Many would like to see Idris Elba play James Bond. ‘Luther: The Fallen Sun’ has the feel of a dry run.
Neil Cross (Crossbones) is a British novelist and scriptwriter, best known as the creator of the visionary drama series Luther (2010-2019). His most recent novel, Luther: The Calling (2011), is a prequel to the Luther TV series, the only novel (so far) about the London detective. It’s excellent. In 2023 Cross wrote and produced a film sequel, Luther: The Fallen Sun, which is … not.
/Streaming /🍅67% 🍿85% /Trailer /2023 /R
Luther: The Fallen Sun was released in select movie theaters for three weeks before its streaming release on 10 March 2023, by Netflix. It’s filmed at a cinematic aspect ratio of 2.35:1, not the 16:9 that we see on modern TV’s, but even on TV we can see the director is taking advantage of the large picture size with the first shot: the side view of a gigantic modernistic office building at night that fills the screen. Luther’s cinematography has always been special; it was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award, and Larry Smith’s camerawork on The Fallen Sun is up to snuff.
Inside the behemoth, office cleaner Callum removes his earphones to pick up one of the phones. A voice calls Callum by name and instructs him to be at a certain place by a certain time. Callum says he can’t make it in time, and the voice says, No problem: he’ll just post his incriminating surveillance of Callum where everyone, including his Mum, can see it. I shift in my seat: This is dangerously similar to the “Shut Up and Dance” episode of Black Mirror.
Callum runs out of the office and dashes to his car. At the rendezvous he comes upon a stopped car in the rainy night. Its door is open and someone appears prone in the street. Calling 999 (the British version of 911) he shakily reports it. This scene is right up there with Luther: scary point-of-view shots, and in the background, a threatening figure rising out of the darkness.
Later, when the area is a crime scene, DCI John Luther (Idris Elba, The Wire) drives up in his old Volvo. This doesn’t follow the last developments of the TV series. It’s a very small spoiler, but by the end of the TV series, Luther is not a policeman, to put it mildly. But here he is, on the job.
The plot snowballs into incoherence, and bombast, which sometimes mutes the confusion for stretches, but incongruities relentlessly spring up. As wild as Luther was, it was believable, or almost. The Fallen Sun strains credulity with some of its set pieces, like some of the worst Roger Moore James Bond movies.
Idris Elba was one of the popular choices for the next “James Bond” actor before he aged out of the running (he’s fifty-two). The Fallen Sun seems to be a pitch for Idris’ own action franchise, and its ending seems to bear that out. It’s uneven, but I could imagine better installments in the future. Let’s hope they’re better.
LUTHER: THE CALLING (novel)
The 2010 TV series Luther (Stream On column) still has the feel of a transformative earthquake. From its angry, charismatic and brilliant title character, to the novelistic writing and the punkish direction, it stands out starkly even from its own milieu, British detective shows. It’s one of my favorites.
Like the direction of the TV series, the writing of The Calling is vivid. It leads into the dramatic result that we’re shown in the first episode of the series, and the “elevator pitch” about John Luther: a passionate but intemperate genius detective with profound anger management issues, who will break rules at the drop of a hat. The TV series might have been titled “Serious Crimes” or “Serious and Serial,” the two police departments for which Luther worked, except that the show is about Detective Inspector John Luther.
Cross said that fleshing out what the actors had already given him regarding their characters made it easier to write them, and his style effortlessly evokes the TV series. From recalling a young Luther at university, meeting his future wife Zoe, to his present situation, during which the seeds are planted for some of the TV series’ most painful revelations, the novel is almost hypnotically good reading, if grisly. Sue Turnbull writes, in The Age, “What this book offers is bleaker, more confronting and, well, terrifying [than the series]. Be prepared.” Now that’s what I call a good read!
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Sources include Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License)
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.