Something Bri-ish to watch in London

But also something not very good.

My two Great Britain viewings ended up being the aforementioned Caught Stealing, notable for its iconic venue (as discussed yesterday), and The Thursday Murder Club, notable for its British subject matter (and being plastered on the side of every double decker bus in London). 

Only one of them was really worth recommending, but the other was somewhat worth recommending, at least among non-cynics, just because the Netflix algorithm is so dastardly efficient that it usually slops together at least mildly entertaining fare.

The Thursday Murder Club also made the most logical next candidate for something I can review, not knowing when I'll next see a new release in the theater.

And I didn't want to wait until France, where we are headed today, to watch it. It did not seem right.

As you likely know, the film stars Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley and Pierce Brosnan, three of the most prominent still-living British icons, as well as Celia Imrie, someone I didn't know but now like. You can throw in two more British semi-icons from their same age bracket (Richard E. Grant and Jonathan Pryce), a middle-aged semi-icon who has been Doctor Who (David Tennant) and a new face of potential British icon-hood, in more ways than one, in Naomi Ackie.

Watch in France? I think not.

I did have a couple questions though.

1) Why does this movie need to be nearly two hours long? As a result I had to watch it over two nights in the living room of the flat.

2) Why does the dialogue have to be so frigging on-the-nose? It's undignified coming out of the mouth of someone as dignified as Helen Mirren.

Anyway, I'll keep this one short as we are, indeed, off to France in about an hour.

I will say I did enjoy the British-ness of it, while I was still in Britain. Maybe not the "good" British-ness of something like Masterpiece Theatre, the BBC or any of the countless Shakespeare productions being mounted somewhere in England at this moment -- including at the Globe, which we visited but could not tour due to bored children, which is playing The Merry Wives of Windsor -- but British-ness nonetheless. The titular club are residents of a retirement home that reminded me of Downtown Abbey, and Brosnan's character watches a football match with his son -- something I also did with my sons while here.

Okay, on to the next one.