The Tourist: Try It, You'll Really Like It

So I was on HBO Max watching Raised by Wolves and I saw a few ads for The Tourist, and I gave it a shot, and I'm glad I did!  How's that for a non-spoiler review?

But here's a little more, with some spoilers.

A man is run off the road by a truck in the Australian outback and wakes up in a hospital having no idea who he is.  That's a fairly standard beginning, harkening back at least as far as Coronet Blue, one of my all-time favorite summer replacement CBS shows with a short number of episodes because the series was never finished.  The Tourist also has a short number of episodes -- six -- and though the mini-series concludes, there's more than enough room for another season or two.

The main character other than the amnesiac is Probationary Constable Helen Chambers.  That's barely police, but Helen has a keen sense of justice and morality, and is played perfectly by Danielle Macdonald. Helen is a little overweight, and engaged to a psychologically abusive guy who's even more overweight, but is driving Helen crazy to lose weight and has open contempt for her job.  Helen is attractive, inside and outside, and it's no surprise that the amnesiac becomes increasingly attracted to her.

The other police are crooked or barely competent.  The amnesiac (well played by Jamie Dornan) has a prior girlfriend with plenty of spunk, great lines, and names, Luci, Victoria, etc, also well played by Shalom Brune-Franklin.  The action is nonstop, with major surprises in just about every episode.

Some of the characters are almost unbelievably hard to kill, but that's ok.  The amnesiac's status is not clear at the end.  But going by my standard that unless you see the character's head severed or blown to bits there's a always a chance he or she can live to show up in a second season.  Which, as I said, I really hope to see.   Harry Williams and Jack Williams, please write it.

 

The Widow: Jolt to the Heart of Darkness

Check out The Widow, eminently binge-able on Amazon Prime Video, a top-drawer action series with great locations in the Congo and strong acting by Kate Beckinsale in the lead role.

She's the widow, and gets caught up in lethal twists and turns after she sees what looks like a quick shot of her husband in a demonstration in Kinshasa three years after he was reported killed in a nearby plane crash, in which not every passenger's body was identified.  Just about everyone is a culprit - including, yes, our dependence on smartphones - and memorable characters abound, from a 12-year old girl pressed into service as a child-soldier (well played by Shalom Nyandiko) to a guy from Iceland (with a love of Whistler's Mother) who did survive the flight but was blinded (well played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson).  Even Charles Dance puts in a customarily suave, savvy, and dexterous performance.

But Beckinsale runs the gamut from heartbroken to furious to tender - not always to different people - and since her Georgia Wells had some military experience, she's also good with a gun.   There've been many other screen narratives of people looking for lost loved ones, but none with this level of kick-in-the-stomach shockers in just about every episode, and none situated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   The combination of the downed flight in the jungle, intercutting of all kinds of flashbacks, and psychological stressors undergone by all sides in the story are reminiscent of Lost at its best (including a strong supporting role by Alex Kingston), and in a different way, of 24: Redemption, which thrust Jack Bauer into a fictional African nation beset by all manner of murderous characters.

I wouldn't quite say Georgia Wells is a female Jack Bauer, but they do have a lot in common, and I certainly would be up for seeing her continue in a sequel series.  Kudos to writers Harry and Jack Williams.