Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Prime Suspect 3 Blu-ray Movie Review

Becoming a Player

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 23, 2013

(Spoiler alert: The following assumes that the reader is familiar with all previous series of Prime Suspect. If you haven't seen all previous series, proceed at your own risk. A spoiler-free overview of the Complete Collection can be found here.)

First Broadcast: December 19-20, 1993 (U.K.); April 28, 1994 (U.S.)

In Series 3 of Prime Suspect, Tennison (Helen Mirren) finds herself running a new squad in a new "nick", which is precisely what she asked for at the conclusion of Series 2. Having been passed over for the Superintendent's position vacated by her old boss, Mike Kernan, and feeling unfairly scapegoated for the death of a suspect that she neither authorized to be brought in for questioning nor even knew was in custody—not to mention the embarrassment from the disclosure of her affair with a subordinate who wasn't her subordinate at the time—Tennison needs a fresh start.

Her new post is a vice squad in Soho, where Tennison's assignment is to clean up the streets. But Tennison discovers that the job she has been handed is phony. The project, known as "Operation Contract", is a long-running failure that killed her predecessor's career and is apparently intended to kill hers as well. With her finely honed instincts for deception, Tennison senses corruption even before she knows exactly where it is. She quickly realizes that something about her new home is "bent".

Prime Suspect's creator Lynda La Plante wrote the screenplay for Series 3. The director was British TV veteran David Drury. In a bold narrative move, La Plante gives the audience a glimpse of the conspiracy at the heart of the story at the very outset. We don't learn how it all fits together, but we sense the destination where a truly dedicated investigator like Jane Tennison will ultimately arrive. The real surprise is what she does when she gets there.

Series 3 opens with a memorable montage presented to the tune of "Falling in Love" again, which is being lip-synched at a colorful cabaret by a drag performer known as "Vera" (actually Vernon) Williams (Peter Capaldi, the most recent Doctor Who). During Vera's performance, we see the cabaret clientele, an upscale crowd that includes several well-dressed dignitaries on whom the camera lingers. Not much later, those same figures will appear at a retirement dinner for a senior member of the London Met, John Kennington (Terence Harvey), joined by other familiar faces, including Tennison's old boss, Mike Kernan (John Benfield), now a Chief Superintendent, and Thorndike (Stephen Boxer), who inherited Kernan's former Superintendent's position instead of Tennison. Despite the fond speeches, no one seems terribly sad to see Kennington's departure; indeed, the opposite sentiment is whispered among the attendees.

But to return to the opening sequence: An additional series of scenes is intercut while the song plays. They show an unconscious teenage boy on a sofa, as he is set aflame and burns to death. His name, as we will later learn, is Colin Jenkins (Gregg Saunders), and he worked as a male prostitute, or "rent boy" under the name of "Connie". The apartment in which he burns to death turns out to belong to Vera, the cabaret performer.

Although forensics establishes Connie's death as a murder, Tennison insists that the vice squad retain jurisdiction, claiming that his death is connected to a prostitution ring operated by a vicious pimp named James Jackson (David Thewlis), who was seen looking for Connie shortly before the fire. All the rent boys are terrified of Jackson, including Martin Fletcher (Danny Dyer), who has a face covered with bruises but won't say how he got them. For a long time, Jackson is Tennison's prime suspect, but the case is replete with questionable characters with stories that don't add up. The drag performer, Vera, has a credible explanation for why Connie was staying in his apartment, but Vera keeps turning up in Jackson's company. There's a social worker named Margaret Speel (Alyson Spiro), whose seeming inattention to her charges might be explained by a heavy caseload, but other possibilities also suggest themselves. An aggressive reporter named Jessica Smithy (Kelly Hunter) keeps chasing Tennison for a scoop on the Connie Jenkins case, but like everyone else Tennison encounters, Ms. Smithy turns out to know more than she lets on.

The most mysterious figure of all, however, is Edward Parker-Jones (Ciarán Hinds), operator of a community center for troubled youth. He seems to be a model citizen, but Tennison's instincts tell her there's more to him. Her suspicions are confirmed when her inquiries into Parker-Jones prompt interference and warnings from her immediate boss, Superintendent Halliday (Struan Rodger), and from his boss, Commander Traynor (Stafford Gordon). They instruct her to drop the Connie Jenkins case and concentrate on Operation Contract. Naturally Tennison ignores them.

Not trusting her own staff, which she fears has been compromised—and, to her dismay, includes her old enemy, Bill Otley (Tom Bell)—Tennison requests backup from her former squad, using the demands of Operation Contract as an excuse. One of the temporary assignments is the reliable Sergeant Richard Haskons (Richard Hawley), a regular in the early years of Prime Suspect. It is Haskons who accompanies Tennison on field trips investigating cases of child abuse that she believes were hushed up through official channels and are the reason why she is being warned off aspects of the Connie Jenkins case. Tennison and Haskons manage to locate two victims, played by Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary) and James Frain (Grimm and True Blood). Their interviews are stomach-turning and suggest coverups at the highest levels of law enforcement.

As the despicable cloak woven by the Old Boys' Network to cover the misdeeds of their own gradually unravels, they scramble to contain the damage. Although Tennison reveals the guilty parties, of which there are many, she finds herself precluded from taking official action. Still, she is inventive enough to find alternate routes for justice to prevail—and this time she's learned how to protect herself from taking the fall for any embarrassment. Indeed, she insists on being promoted for her sterling efforts at cleaning up the Soho streets. Given what she now knows, her superiors are in no position to refuse.

As always in Prime Suspect, Tennison's personal life provides a counterpoint to her police work. At the beginning of Series 3, we find her attending a lecture by a popular American crime author, Jake Hunter (Michael Shannon), an old flame (and, from all indications, a serious one). Long ago, Tennison and Hunter went their separate ways, she to a career in law enforcement, he to a marriage and four children. Now, after a night together, he says he still loves her. What can Tennison do except say goodbye? Well, she can track down Hunter at the airport the next day to consult with him about Connie Jenkins' murder. With Tennison, business always comes first—until the very last moments of Series 3, when she must make an important personal decision.

Prime Suspect 3 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a discussion of Series 3's reformatted 1.78:1 aspect ratio, please see the Video section of The Complete Collection review. The extra screencaps with this review include sample comparisons between the Blu-ray and Acorn Media's DVD release of Series 3, which retained the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. (Note that the DVD image has been slightly squeezed; this was not uncommon on DVD to compensate for overscan.) The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray opens with the disclaimer quoted in the Complete Collection review.

The cinematographer for Series 3 was David Odd, who shot part of Series 2 and would return on Series 4. The Blu-ray image for Series 3 is comparable in quality to that of Series 1 and 2, varying from sharp and detailed to fuzzy, soft and grainy. Fortunately, the latter continues to be the exception. Series 3 sports some of the strongest and most vibrant colors seen in Prime Suspect to date, which is in large part a function of the production design in the cabaret setting. Still, it's a testament to the quality of the Blu-ray image that it can handle such colors when they're available.

As with Series 1 and 2, compared to the DVD, the Blu-ray image of Series 3 is considerably brighter, but I see no reason to regard the DVD's image as some sort of "standard". Blacks, when they occur, are sufficiently black to suggest that the brightening remains within appropriate parameters. Some light noise reduction has clearly been applied, but not at the expense of detail or at the cost of motion artifacts.

Series 3 runs 215 minutes in two parts, which is two minutes longer than its precessors. The additional time does not seem to have introduced any compression artifacts.

Prime Suspect 3 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD MA 2.0 track for Series 3 has some of the most memorable sound effects heard in the early seasons of Prime Suspect, mostly thanks to the two cabaret numbers lip-synched by the character known as "Vera". These play loudly with deep bass extension and a strong sense of the nightclub environment. In the opening montage, the bass of the music has been carefully mixed with the roar of the flames that claim the life of the murder victim, and these too are a forceful sound effect. Indeed, whenever Vera is on screen, the soundtrack seems to come alive; during her interrogation, the traffic outside is particularly loud and rumbling.

Dialogue remains clearly reproduced, although the speech of the "rent boys" is sometimes slurred. Stephen Warbeck's score for Series 3 is somewhat more elaborate, featuring a children's choir. It provides a haunting presence.

Prime Suspect 3 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included with Series 3. At startup the disc plays a trailer for Falcón, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button.

Prime Suspect 3 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tennison shows a personal touch at unexpected moments, and one of them occurs in Series 3 with a cop, Brian Dalton (Andrew Woodall), whom she knows has been planted on her squad by the bosses to spy on her. The poor fellow has the misfortune to get bitten by a street kid with AIDS, and as he anxiously awaits his test results and contemplates the prospect of months, maybe years, of uncertainty, he begins to fall apart. Tennison sees his suffering and tries to comfort him. He may be a spy, but he is also a fellow cop doing his job—and he didn't deserve this. In a world of moral ambiguity, Tennison always knows what's right. She's one of the few people whose moral compass never wavers, even if she sometimes falls short of her own standards. Series 3 is a disturbing tale, but it's great drama.