Suspicions of Mr Whicher - The Murder at Road Hill House & The Murder in Angel Lane [DVD]

I am fortunate enough to be living only a stone's throw from where the true events of this terrible crime happened. I bought the book and couldn't put it down. When this film was released earlier this year (2011) I was determined to see it and was glad that I did. There are some deviations away from the book and many key events have been omitted - but then the producers cannot be expected to condense a 24-hour book into a 2-hour movie for TV. I was only mildly disappointed but to be quite fair I believe the essence of the story is not in how Mr Whicher, a detective from the London Metropolitan Police, was able to identify the miscreant but in fact how he had to fight through obstacles thrown in his way by the local police force (Trowbridge) who were understandably miffed by the Met having been involved in what should have been their investigation. However, it is a very watchable movie and I am pleased to have bought it. I shall watch it many more times; there is always something I missed the previous time. Very watchable. 9 out of 10.

I wish I could key in "murders in Victorian England" and an endless list of films similar to this will miraculously appear. Paddy Considine is Mr Whicher, the detective sent to Wiltshire to solve the terrible murder at Road Hill House. He is under a lot of pressure by his boss to bring the murderer to justice, but he has his work cut out for him due to the narrow-minded attitude of the Police officer in charge of the investigation. In fact he does everything to get Whicher out of the way,the father of the murdered boy is no help either and when Whicher thinks he has the case solved, the key witness denies everything she had told Whicher. Considine is impeccable as Whicher, his torture at his failure - it nearly destroyed the detective, his integrity, all marvellous to see - you just cannot take your eyes off Mr Whicher. My favourite scene is when Whicher tells the murdered boy's father who really caused this horror to happen.This film is worth 5 stars for Paddy Considine's acting, although the supporting cast is also admirable, the atmosphere of Victorian England is also cleverly portrayed, social attitudes, injustice everything. My husband and myself have watched this film a few times and yes I would recommend it to lovers of crime.

Having read both Kate Summerscale's book and some of the negative the reviews here, I had my doubts about the success of a transfer of this murder mystery, to film. The book was extremely heavy on detail, and it surely was no easy task for this to be squeezed into under two hours of film, but on the whole it was achieved very well. The essence of the key issues in the book were all there and the plot unravelled at a pace that held the interest right to the very end. The acting was sound in all characters and the screenplay did just enough to convey the contemporary Victorian attitudes to this case that became a national obsession. I enjoyed it!

This was painful. I love murder mysteries and have a particular weakness for historic English stories thanks to Sherlock Holmes, so I was very hopeful that this film would be enjoyable. The fact that it was based on a real murder was an added bonus. Sadly, the main detective who I think the audience is meant to sympathize with, just comes off as rude and exceedingly irrational. He keeps jumping from conclusion to conclusion and lets no such lowly things as "evidence" dissuade him.His story doesn't hang together - at least the way the film portrays it - and for the fact that he keeps harping on about his ability to put himself into a criminals mind and the importance of motive, he actually has none other than a vague dislike between the children. His method of interrogation consists out of bullying everyone until they say what he wants them to say and if anyone doesn't he interprets this as a sign of guilt.Sadly the supporting characters in turn are colourless and one dimensional. You never get a feel for them and I ended up not caring wether they were guilty or not. I mainly hoped that the suspect would turn out not to be guilty to spite the inspector and prove his methods of jumping to conclusions and bullying ineffective. I was very close to just turning the film off a few times - especially when it continued to drag on without any real developments - but kept watching in the desperate hope that there would have to be an improvement at some point. May be a sudden twist at the end, a revelation or at least a development in any of the characters. As you might have guessed from my rating, there was none.Really, spare yourself the boredom and pain and watch some Sherlock Holmes or Murdoch instead.

The dvd came within the forecasted period and in good order. The movie itself is very good. It is based on the real event in the 18th century. The actors and actrices in the movie are all good and convincing which make the movie entertaining till the end. This movie is not for people who like actions but more for those who like detectives, sherlock holmes types, stories.

I like paddy and i think peter steals the show as the adulterous father but everything about this feels kind of slow and flat. The dialouge isn't very involving and the story seems to have been cut short to a huge extent, along with the main character coming across as a complete git and the book almost being completely ignored apart from being a source material. On the up side the opening scene of the child hunt is really well done and the costumes and attention to detail is great but on the whole it just seems a bit slow, bland and flat. Which is a shame as the book had the potential to be a hell of a lot better then this.

Although I enjoyed the book, it did drag on at times with an excess of detail and information on the case. The movie is much more engaging, although the ending was brought about too abruptly and I feel I wouldn't have understood it well if I had not read the book beforehand (as my daughters experienced when they watched it with me). All in all, I recommend both book and film, as a package for a very interesting story.