On its own, the film works wonderfully as a piece about corruption overtaking a naïve idealist, but its emotional impact draws us in, compelling the audience to return now that the stage is set.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 22, 2023

Episode 30: Capernaum / The Red Riding Trilogy / High Flying Bird

Full Review | Original Score: 86/100 | Sep 9, 2021

Beautifully directed by Jarrold, 1974 is a haunting and frightening portrait of a man willing to find the answers at all costs that approaches Zodiac in its quality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 5, 2019

It envisions Yorkshire as a bleak and ugly place, where violence is just as commonplace as Yorkshire pudding.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 28, 2011

Cigarettes, leather jackets, bell-bottoms, and dollops of pop music establish the socially agreed upon distractions of the particular bygone time: just a few ways of avoiding ugly truths. [Blu-ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 9, 2010

With its muted colors but unmuted violence, it's similar texturally to David Fincher's superb Zodiac, about another 70s serial killer. It's also just as disturbing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 16, 2010

The Red Riding films all come across as great, gritty tales of police corruption and human failing, but it's the first film that has the most impact, mainly because the young reporter Dunford is such a mix of romantic notions.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Mar 19, 2010

This is a noir, the kind where the good-for-nothing gumshoe (here, an investigative reporter) has a habit of getting his face bashed in, usually on account of a girl.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2010

Each film is enriched by collective detail, but it would have been richer had they played off each other rather than extending the argument.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 11, 2010

A well-made, expertly performed mystery with the added bonus that there are two more films to watch when this one's over.

Full Review | Mar 10, 2010

It is effective at setting the stage, introducing some of the characters, and capturing the attention of those who love gritty, uncompromising dramas about police corruption and the dark side of human nature.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 25, 2010

...the only one of the films [of the trilogy] which can really stand on its own artistically...

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 17, 2010

The tenets of crime cinema are well taken care of in 1974, which sets a specifically chest-tightening tone of anxiety and futility that makes the next two pictures (1980 and 1983) impossible to miss.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 3, 2010

Tightly helmed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots) . . . (and) beautifully shot, with some sensational acting turns -- especially by Rebecca Hall as one of the victims' mothers.

Full Review | Jan 19, 2010