Red Riding

Red Riding is a television adaptation of English author David Peace's Red Riding Quartet. Published between 1999 and 2002, the quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999), Nineteen Seventy-Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nineteen Eighty-Three (2002). Set against a backdrop of serial murders, including the Yorkshire Ripper case, they deal with multi-layered corruption and feature several recurring characters across the four books. Though real crimes are featured, the scripts are fictionalised and dramatised versions of events rather than contemporary factual accounts.

The adaptation into three feature-length television episodes aired in the UK on Channel 4 beginning on 5 March 2009. They are produced by Revolution Films. The three films were released theatrically in the US in February 2010.^[2]

1974

In 1974, Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a young reporter from the Yorkshire Post, tries to find information on a series of missing girls. Meanwhile, John Dawson (Sean Bean), a local businessman, bribes members of the West Yorkshire Constabulary (WYC) and councillors into letting him purchase local land and gain permission for a mall he has planned. This is done by burning down a Roma camp previously existing in the area. One of the murdered girls is found on Dawson's land, having been tortured, raped, and strangled, with swan wings stitched into her back.

Young, cocky and naive, Dunford conducts his investigation up to a dangerous stage. After the death of his friend Barry Gannon (Anthony Flanagan), he meets an elusive male prostitute, B.J. (Robert Sheehan), who passes along incriminating materials Barry had gathered about local authority figures. Dunford becomes involved with the mother of one of the missing girls, Paula Garland (Rebecca Hall). He then learns that she has a secret sexual relationship with Dawson: she tells Dunford that she and Dawson have known each other all their lives.

Dunford ignores threats from corrupt WYC officers to keep away from Paula and Dawson's institutionalized wife. However, he continues his investigation until he is ultimately arrested after storming into a private party at Dawson's house. Paula is also abducted and murdered. After being severely beaten and tortured by two police officers, Tommy Douglas (Tony Mooney) and Bob Craven (Sean Harris), Dunford is given a gun and abandoned in a desolate area.

Dunford seeks out Dawson, finds him at the Karachi Club and challenges him about the murders. Dawson makes a confession to having “a private weakness”, indicating that he was connected to the girls' murders. Dunford shoots him repeatedly then flees by car. He then deliberately drives into a head-on collision with two police cars that were pursuing him; a vision of Paula appears by his side before his death.

A bag full of documented evidence of police corruption, left by Dunford with a seemingly trustworthy officer before his death, is brought by the latter to Detective Superintendent Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), who destroys it.

This episode was shot on 16 mm film and broadcast with an anamorphic aspect ratio of 16×9. It was directed by Julian Jarrold.

1980

In 1980, following a public outcry concerning its failure to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, the WYC brings in Inspector Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine) to aid the investigation, much to the chagrin of Bill Molloy (Warren Clarke). Hunter had previously worked on the Karachi Club massacre, a case he had to abandon due to his wife's miscarriage. The two cases are linked by Officer Bob Craven (Sean Harris). Hunter correctly deduces that the Ripper inquiry is being side-tracked by the Wearside Jack tapes, and feels that the real Ripper has been interviewed and missed.

Hunter suspects that one of the Ripper's supposed victims, Clare Strachan, was killed by a copycat murderer. Hunter receives information on the murder from B.J., who is introduced through Reverend Laws. B.J. claims that Strachan was a prostitute working for Eric Hall, a now-dead WYC policeman. Hall's wife requests that Hunter meet her, and after visiting her house—where Reverend Laws also present—she provides Hunter with proof of Hall's work as a pimp, and that she gave Hall's documents to Jobson. Jobson claims to have lost the files.

Hunter interrogates Prentice and Alderman, who lets slip that the Strachan murder was probably performed by Hall, covered-up to look like a Ripper murder. Hunter also visits the now debilitated Tommy Douglas who later phones him demanding that they meet at his house. However, Hunter arrives to find Douglas and his daughter killed.

Near the end of Hunter's Christmas holiday, his house is burned down. When he returns to West Yorkshire, he learns that the WYC has taken him off the Ripper case, leading to a confrontation with Jobson. Hunter tracks down B.J. and forces him to reveal that five masked policemen burst into the Karachi Club minutes after Dunford's revenge, killing all civilian survivors and finding Bob Craven and Tommy Douglas wounded by Eddie. Clare and B.J., two of the waiters at the club, witnessed the whole scene while hiding behind the bar, and were spotted by Angus and Craven as they fled the premises. B.J. is, therefore, the only surviving witness of the Karachi double massacre, which forces him to flee town. B.J. also implies that Craven was the murderer of Clare Strachan.

Peter Hunter returns to Millgarth Station, Leeds to reveal this new information to Nolan; Nolan takes Peter down to the cells where Nolan says Craven is. Hunter enters the cell to see Bob Craven slouched back in a chair, a bullet through his head. Nolan reveals that he was one of the five who took part in the Karachi Club shootings and shoots Hunter dead. Detective Inspectors Dickie Alderman and Jim Prentice make it look like Hunter and Craven shot each other. Joan Hunter is seen comforted by Reverend Laws after Hunter's funeral.

This episode was shot on 35 mm film and broadcast with an anamorphic aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is directed by James Marsh.

1983

In 1983, Maurice Jobson is plagued by guilt over his reluctant participation in the corrupt activities within the WYC. It is revealed that it was he who tipped off Dunford about the arson in the Roma camp, in which Jobson took part under pressure by Molloy. It is also revealed that he knew about the innocence of Michael Myshkin (Daniel Mays), a mentally challenged man who was accused of the serial killings in 1974. Jobson is aware of a conspiracy within the WYC protecting high-profile figures, including Dawson, from public exposure. Jobson's pangs of conscience are brought upon by his investigation into the recent disappearance of a young girl named Hazel Atkins, and lead him to open previous cases. He also starts an intimate relationship with a medium (Saskia Reeves), who seems to be in possession of valuable information concerning the more recent crimes.

Meanwhile, John Piggott (Mark Addy), a solicitor and the son of a notorious WYC officer, decides to explore the Atkins case himself. His inquiries lead him to Leonard Cole (Gerard Kearns), the young man who found the swan-stitched victim in 1974 and who is now being framed for Atkins' disappearance. Cole is tortured and murdered by the police, his death disguised as a suicide. Using information given by Myshkin, Piggott finds a mine shaft hidden in a pigeon shed near Laws' home, where he discovers that a paedophile and child-murdering ring was run in West Yorkshire by Reverend Laws.

It is implied that only when children with known, stable local families were abducted was the criminal structure partially compromised—perhaps the main reason for the constables' indirect assistance in Dawson's demise. Laws counted on the complicity and even direct collaboration of high-ranking officials in the WYC. It is also revealed, through Piggott's imagination and flashbacks by other characters, that the clients of this ring included significant figures of society, among them businessmen such as Dawson and policemen such as Piggott's own father.

Finally, it is also revealed that B.J. was the first child abducted by this criminal enterprise, and perhaps the only one who survived. He ends up returning to Laws' home to enact revenge, but in the last moment finds himself unable to do so due to Laws' mind-numbing, domineering influence on him. Seconds before Laws is about to trephine B.J. with an electrical drill, Jobson appears with a shotgun and shoots the reverend three times, killing him. He then opens the hidden entrance to the mine shaft just in time for Piggott to emerge from it with a still-living Hazel Atkins in his arms. B.J. flees southward by train, reflecting on his upbringing, his experiences, and his “escape” from the past of West Yorkshire.

The third episode of the trilogy aired on 19 March 2009 on Channel 4. It was shot using the Red One digital camera. It was directed by Anand Tucker.

Awards and nominations

The films won The TV Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards.^[3]

Theatrical film adaptation

Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights to adapt the novels and films into a theatrical film. The studio was negotiating with Ridley Scott in October 2009 to direct it, Rebecca Hall and Andrew Garfield might reprise their roles.^[4]

The Trilogy was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the US by IFC Films on 5 February 2010.^[5]

References

External links

• Official website
• "Filming wraps on new Channel 4 drama serial “Red Riding”" (Press release). Channel 4. http://www.channel4.com/pressandpublicity/redriding.html. 
• Northern Exposure, The Guardian, February 28, 2009
• Review, Leicester Mercury
• Review by Roger Ebert, March 10, 2010
• Red Riding Trilogy at Rotten Tomatoes
• Red Riding: 1974 at the Internet Movie Database
• Red Riding: 1980 at the Internet Movie Database
• Red Riding: 1983 at the Internet Movie Database