Little Devil
ITV1, 9pm
Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy BBC1, 10.55pm
Chinatown
Five, 11.05pm
AS Little Devil reached its conclusion, Robson Green continued to demonstrate his ongoing mastery of the art of embodying all that's noblest about contemporary British chapdom. Need a portrayal of a conflicted, mildly paradoxical noughties geezer?
Robson's definitely your man, in that he comes over as a plain-speaking cross between a thoughtful primary school teacher and a ruffty-tuffty jobbing builder. For most of the married characters Robson plays are as sensitive as they are mildly roguish; blokes who are equally capable of digging out a householder's founds as patching up someone's broken heart (although it's usually Robson's which needs this treatment).
However, as an action hero, dashing into a flame-wreathed classroom to rescue his young son in Little Devil's blazing climax, Robson was less convincing (no Harrison Ford, he's too thin and a bit too short).
In fact, the whole of Little Devil's denouement was way less than convincing (too thin and overly drawn out). Two intertwined, sundered marriages neatly separated and miraculously repaired; one teenage temptress correctly spurned; one vengeful wife transformed into her hubby's ultra-sharp business partner; one wise-but-wayward child dragged back from the brink of self-destruction; one pregnant, straying wife accepted back into the marital fold, no awkward questions about paternity asked.
It all added up to something sweetly implausible and not strictly necessary, like treacled haggis or sugared mince.
That aside, you couldn't help but like Robson Green. He is unparalleled in the thespian art of looking decently bewildered; pained and at the same time baffled; quirky in inclination yet honourable in everyday use. And all in a bluff, man-of-the-streets Wearside accent.
He was particularly effective in hovering on the brink of tears - manly ones, mind - while informing his errant missus that their marriage was at long last, and with deep regret, extinct. "We have kicked the life out of whatever was left," Robson emoted manfully. "It's all dead now." But then, of course, it wasn't dead at all in yon unbelievable ending.
Thanks to yesterday's English Bank Holiday, we were entertained with late-night showings for a couple of superior movies. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a cleverly dumb comedy about a deeply stupid small-town San Diego TV presenter and his even more moronic fellow small-screen journalists: chaps with risible all-American names such as Brian Fantana, Champ Kind, Wes Mantooth and Brick Tamland.
As the film's eponymous bone-headed star, Will Ferrell was a constant joy, whether professing his love for his sassy co-host, Veronica Corningstone; for whisky or - more oddly - for jazz flute.
More than that, the movie is a satire which homes in on the twin targets of self-regarding TV shows and the mindless macho mores that were prevalent in the sexist seventies.
Having lived through that far-off journalistic era myself as a young boy, I agree almost 100% with every news-filly who found those times shocking, although I agree more closely on the matter with Brian Fantana: "Don't get me wrong, I love the ladies," stated Brian.
"I mean they rev my engines, but they don't belong in the newsroom." Only joking, ladies.
Set in 1930s Los Angeles, Chinatown is a timeless gem that provides Jack Nicholson with his finest screen moments as wisecracking, sinned-against gumshoe Jake Gittes. Nor can Faye Dunaway have been better as fragile femme fatale Evelyn Mulwray.
One exchange in particular is heavy with the rough-hewn eroticism of Bogart and Bacall.
"Hollis seems to think you're an innocent man," smoulders Evelyn. Replies the laconic Jake: "Well, I've been accused of a lot of things before, Mrs Mulwray, but never that."
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