There is a line in Manhunt — a British TV series now streaming on Acorn TV– that made me wish I was still a Brit living in the old country.
The 3-part series, starring Martin Clunes as Det. Chief Inspector Colin Sutton, dramatizes the real life police hunt and eventual capture of a serial killer who terrorized southwest London from 2002 to 2006. In the scene where the perp is eventually captured, a detective searches the house where the perp lives.
The last place left to look is the attic. The detective climbs into it without waiting for back-up. He finds the perp, arrests him, and then has to face Det. Chief Inspector Sutton for disobeying orders.
“You’re very naughty,” says Sutton to the detective. What??? You’re very naughty??? As in, you’re very naughty for eating cookies before dinner!!!!
Love Brit TV
OMG! I love the Brits. I love British TV. I love the understatement of it all.
And, that’s really the beauty of this 3-parter.
As hollywoodreporter.com observed, it is “admirably unsensationalistic.” There is no gratuitous narrative focussing on the bloody hammer attacks that left three women dead. It avoids “bloody flashbacks, brutal depictions of any kind or lurid corpse photos.”
Nor is there much focus on the motives or evil character of the serial killer. We find out he is a clamper ( one of those people who puts boots on cars which are illegally parked) and is married with two young children. In one scene where he approaches two young girls at a bus stop, they laugh at him and walk away.
I’m reminded of the foreword which author Gillian Flynn wrote for the true-life crime book about the hunt for the Golden State Killer, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: “I don’t care who he is. Looking at such a man’s face is anticlimactic; we know what he did; any information beyond that will inevitably feel pedestrian, pale, somewhat cliche: ‘My mother was cruel. I hate women. I never had a family…’ And so on.”
Manhunt does not dwell on this serial killer’s inherent psychopathy. Rather, the 3-parter is about the team effort spear-headed by Sutton that brought about the capture, arrest and eventual conviction and incarceration of Levi Bellfield (photo.). It is ” a primer on the unspectacular reality of police work, ” and the use of “old-fashioned shoe leather ” albeit with some aid from technology in the form of CCTV tapes. Hundreds of hours of them. Scrolling through those hours of CCTV, I suppose, is the modern-day equivalent of “using shoe leather.”
As NPR commented: “It celebrates collective action over individual brilliance.”
Domestic Drama, Too
But more than that, it offers a couple of insights that just grab you by the throat with their honesty. For one, it zeros right in on a domestic narrative arc that rings true and painful.
Sutton, on whose memoir this TV series is based, gets grief from Louise, his second wife for missing a family wedding in Spain because of the investigation (he leaves her at the boarding gate.) He also gets grief from his daughter (by his first marriage) for missing his own birthday celebration which the daughter has arranged.
For most of the world, the reactions of wife and daughter are understandable. For those of us who have had 24/7 jobs where spouses have understood and tolerated the demands of that kind of profession, we feel resentment against his loved ones for not understanding that his job is so much more important than a family wedding in Spain.
Feuding Police Forces
There is also the added factor that Sutton’s wife, Louise works for the neighboring Surrey police department. London’s Metropolitan police force views Surrey P.D. as hugely incompetent in its handling of an investigation into the murder of 13-year old schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.
Sutton’s investigation eventually shows that Bellfield was also responsible for her abduction and murder. The in-fighting between police departments is all a little reminiscent of those FBI vs local law enforcement tropes — except this one intrudes right into a marital bedroom.
Lastly, a stark difference between British and American law enforcement appears in the concluding scenes of Manhunt where Sutton takes responsibility for a screw-up in the investigation that delayed apprehension of the serial killer.
Painful Screw-Up
He travels to France to tell the parents of the last victim, Amelie Delagrange, that their daughter might still be alive had the screw-up not happened. I doubt whether such a scenario would be possible here given the speed with which such parents would bring a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the police department.
It is French law enforcement however that is on the receiving end of Sutton’s anger. In one scene, Sutton harangues a French detective who tells Sutton he plans to inform the parents of the French victim of their loss — by phone!!!!!
The series is definitely worth watching. There are three parts, each approximately 50 minutes long — so, just about two-and-a-half hours of viewing. You won’t regret it. It’ll be the best binge-watching you’ve done in a while.
Photo credit (DCI Colin Sutton): thesun.co.uk