![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI popped Reilly: Ace of Spies on my Netflix queue since it stars Sam Neill (who I've loved since The Hunt for Red October) and I was always curious about this series. Little did I know.
I'ts based on the "real" life of Sidney Reilly, the spy that inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond. Of course, looking at historical record, the only proof we have of 90% of this is word from Reilly himself, much of which can be directly disproven. So the man was a slimy braggart and a liar, but for the purposes of the series, they just assume that it's mostly true - which, you know, television.
Now there's ruthless, and then there's an amoral soul-less bastard. The more I watch this, the more I wonder what the hell were they thinking, making a TV show about this character. He's a villain! And not even one you can sympathize with.
In the first episode, he seduces a woman so he can escape a small Middle Eastern town where he has been arrested for espionage, then flees, killing several people in the process, and allowing this woman and her husband to spend a year in prison in recompense for his crimes. When she finally gets back to England, he marries her.
In the second episode he drags his new wife to Manchuria, where he keeps her a prisoner in their house (for her safety), is only mildly interested when she takes a lover, then sells Russian military secrets to Japan, causing the massacre of all the town's inhabitants. He ships his wife back to England just before the attack with vague words about maybe never coming back, but if he does, she sure as hell better be waiting for him.
In the third episode, he's sent to Germany to rescue a young, inexperienced agent who's breaking under the stress. Far from helping this man, he conceals from him the fact that he is a British spy sent as back up and sets out to systematically screw him over, leading to his arrest for espionage and suicide. This provides enough distraction for Reilly to steal plans to German guns. At the end, someone asks him why he killed the night guard during his theft. In a throwaway line, Reilly mentions that the night guard is his landlord, a character we've seen Reilly playing cards with throughout the episode, whose daughter Reilly is sleeping with. Reilly is just sort of like, yeah, well, I was engaged to his daughter, so I couldn't very well let him live, now could I?
The fourth episode -- oh, the fourth episode. His wife finally runs off with another man (good for her) after he hadn't been back to England, for oh, four years. Reilly goes a little bonkers and chases after her to Paris. There he finds his half-sister, Anna. Now, Reilly is a Russian Jew who faked his suicide to escape to England, so Anna thought he was dead. This would all be very touching family reunion, but everything is a little bit - off. Now, I'm not one to read into things *hem*, and I tried not to read too much into this, but it was hard not to. Reilly buys his sister flowers. He seems happy she's never taken a lover. She gets very upset when she learns he's married. She calls him her "one love." He tells her he was chasing his wife, but isn't any longer. She asks him to stay the night, he says he was planning on it, then leers at her. When Anna introduces him to her landlady, the landlady says, "You know the song - half-brother, half lover..." ?!?!?! And if that weren't bad enough, she kills herself at the end of the episode and leaves Reilly a note where she says she is "dieing twice for the same love."
As I watch this, my jaw is going further and further toward the floor. No, I think. No, they are not implying what I think they're implying. That's just me and my overactive subtext goggles. But no - they really really were, in a very uptight British way. Again, I ask myself, the BBC made this? Why? Creepy weird spy incest stories aren't really their thing.
It's not even that he's a terribly good spy, either. He doesn't seem at all competent. He has none of Bond's cool-ness, but that could just be the crappy production values. I mean, they have prosthetic makeup on a few of the actors (to accentuate certain ethnic facial features) that you can clearly, clearly see is a totally different color than the rest of their skin.
And none of the actual espionage happens on screen! I suspect the action sequences would have cost too much to produce, so they just skip them. Which leaves the show with a whole - WTF? feel. I mean really - why did they make this? It's not that it's not entertaining to watch - it is - but it's such an odd little series. What the hell?
I'ts based on the "real" life of Sidney Reilly, the spy that inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond. Of course, looking at historical record, the only proof we have of 90% of this is word from Reilly himself, much of which can be directly disproven. So the man was a slimy braggart and a liar, but for the purposes of the series, they just assume that it's mostly true - which, you know, television.
Now there's ruthless, and then there's an amoral soul-less bastard. The more I watch this, the more I wonder what the hell were they thinking, making a TV show about this character. He's a villain! And not even one you can sympathize with.
In the first episode, he seduces a woman so he can escape a small Middle Eastern town where he has been arrested for espionage, then flees, killing several people in the process, and allowing this woman and her husband to spend a year in prison in recompense for his crimes. When she finally gets back to England, he marries her.
In the second episode he drags his new wife to Manchuria, where he keeps her a prisoner in their house (for her safety), is only mildly interested when she takes a lover, then sells Russian military secrets to Japan, causing the massacre of all the town's inhabitants. He ships his wife back to England just before the attack with vague words about maybe never coming back, but if he does, she sure as hell better be waiting for him.
In the third episode, he's sent to Germany to rescue a young, inexperienced agent who's breaking under the stress. Far from helping this man, he conceals from him the fact that he is a British spy sent as back up and sets out to systematically screw him over, leading to his arrest for espionage and suicide. This provides enough distraction for Reilly to steal plans to German guns. At the end, someone asks him why he killed the night guard during his theft. In a throwaway line, Reilly mentions that the night guard is his landlord, a character we've seen Reilly playing cards with throughout the episode, whose daughter Reilly is sleeping with. Reilly is just sort of like, yeah, well, I was engaged to his daughter, so I couldn't very well let him live, now could I?
The fourth episode -- oh, the fourth episode. His wife finally runs off with another man (good for her) after he hadn't been back to England, for oh, four years. Reilly goes a little bonkers and chases after her to Paris. There he finds his half-sister, Anna. Now, Reilly is a Russian Jew who faked his suicide to escape to England, so Anna thought he was dead. This would all be very touching family reunion, but everything is a little bit - off. Now, I'm not one to read into things *hem*, and I tried not to read too much into this, but it was hard not to. Reilly buys his sister flowers. He seems happy she's never taken a lover. She gets very upset when she learns he's married. She calls him her "one love." He tells her he was chasing his wife, but isn't any longer. She asks him to stay the night, he says he was planning on it, then leers at her. When Anna introduces him to her landlady, the landlady says, "You know the song - half-brother, half lover..." ?!?!?! And if that weren't bad enough, she kills herself at the end of the episode and leaves Reilly a note where she says she is "dieing twice for the same love."
As I watch this, my jaw is going further and further toward the floor. No, I think. No, they are not implying what I think they're implying. That's just me and my overactive subtext goggles. But no - they really really were, in a very uptight British way. Again, I ask myself, the BBC made this? Why? Creepy weird spy incest stories aren't really their thing.
It's not even that he's a terribly good spy, either. He doesn't seem at all competent. He has none of Bond's cool-ness, but that could just be the crappy production values. I mean, they have prosthetic makeup on a few of the actors (to accentuate certain ethnic facial features) that you can clearly, clearly see is a totally different color than the rest of their skin.
And none of the actual espionage happens on screen! I suspect the action sequences would have cost too much to produce, so they just skip them. Which leaves the show with a whole - WTF? feel. I mean really - why did they make this? It's not that it's not entertaining to watch - it is - but it's such an odd little series. What the hell?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 08:34 pm (UTC)Weird. Freaky stupid weird. Incest. Blargh.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 09:15 pm (UTC)Then there's the whole thing about it being WTF-y...