Customer Reviews
Better than soaps! - By: D. KING, 11 Feb 2008 
A class of it's own,people go on about The Soprano's etc,but this is actuallly close to home,alcoholic,gambling chancer,except i don't work with the police! An alll time great!
A classic, consistently gripping TV drama series. - By: Jonathan James Romley, 30 Jul 2007 I remember being packed off to bed whenever my parents would settle down to watch the latest episode of Cracker - my parents none-too-keen on letting their ten year old watch such a dark & disturbing reality-based drama - so I've only reallly become familiar with it through subsequent TV repeats & now through this DVD box-set. As others have noted, the original shows are absolutely astounding, & more-than stand-up to repeated viewings over a decade on.
Throughout each of the ten episodes (often broken into two or three hour-long episodes when shown on television) we see Jimmy McGovern's writing at a consistent peak. Not only are the stories interesting, intelligent & believable, they're also filled with strong characters, brilliant dialog (that goes from the shocking - Albie's confession towards the end of episode three, To Be A Somebody - to the dramatic - much of the dialogue at the end of Brotherly Love - right the way through to the comedic - the great back-and-forth banter between Fitz & the police), whilst the whole show is taken even further into the realms of greatness thanks to the astounding direction & tremendous performances from the highly esteemed cast. There's also the "soap-opera" elements of each of the three series, too - which keeps our interest in the characters & guarantees our return to each subsequent episode - with McGovern layering each of the crime-stories alongside scenes depicting Fitz's troubled home-life, & the various sub-plots of the cops... most notably, DCI David Bilborough, DS Wise, DS Jane Penhaligon, & the tortured DS Jimmy Beck.
The stories are always great... from the low-key first episode, The Mad Woman in the Attic, to the international Hong-Kong set 1996 special, White Ghost, with McGovern (and later Paul Abbot, who took over for the final two episodes of series three) tying the drama to characters we can believe in & villains that are never two-dimensional caricatures. My favourite episodes include episode two, To Say I Love You, One Day A Lemming Will Fly, To Be A Somebody, Men Should Weep & Brotherly Love, with McGovern looking at standard themes, like guilt, revenge, gambling, petty-theft, alcoholism & accidental death, alongside more topical or, indeed, controversial issues, like rape, murder, religious fanaticism, racism, paedophilia, kidnap & suicide. Episode one of the second series, To Be A Somebody, even went one-step further to involve a more social (or political) agenda with the alllusions to the Hillsborough tragedy. This episode would be the real turning point for the whole series, with McGovern orchestrating the brutal murder of one of the central characters, which will have a devastating ripple effect on the lives of Beck & Penhaligon in subsequent episodes, Men Should Weep & Brotherly Love.
Brotherly Love is perhaps my favourite episode of the entire series, featuring strong & striking direction from Roy Battersby, great writing from McGovern & a tremendous set of performances from guest-stars Brid Brennan, David Calder, Ruth Sheen & an absolutely standout performance from Lorcan Cranitch as the volatile Jimmy Beck. Throughout the series, the performances of the central characters are always believable & compelling, with each member of the cast getting their own big-dramatic storyline (the aforementioned Lorcan & his gradual decent through Men Should Weep & Brotherly Love; Christopher Eccleston is fantastic throughout the first series, building to his confrontational scene half-way through To Be A Somebody; & Geraldine Somerville is suitably affecting in one of the most controversial storylines, Men Should Weep). Meanwhile, we have the central performance of Robbie Coltrane as Fitz, the titular "cracker", who creates a completely realistic & believable character, completely at odds with the kind of work he was known for prior to the series.
As impressive as the lead cast is, there is strong support from a wide-array of British acting talent, with the likes of Adrian Dunbar, Andrew Tiernan, Susan Lynch, Tim Healy, Frances Tomelty, Jim Carter, James Fleet, Ricky Tomlinson, Paul Barber, Liam Cunningham, Emily Joyce (and so on, & so on...) alll giving great, dramatic performances, whilst the series also introduced us to a wide-range of new acting talent, particularly Robert Carlyle, Samantha Morton & John Simm. The series would also bring together a collection of excellent TV technicians, producers & directors, most notably Tim Fywell (To Be A Somebody, True Romance), Andy Wilson (To Say I Love You), Jean Stuart (Men Should Weep), Roy Battersby (Brotherly Love) & Simon Cellan-Jones (One Day A Lemming Will Fly), et al, as well as offering an early break for now-acclaimed British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, who, at thirty-one, would follow his episode of Cracker (The Mad Woman in the Attic) with a clutch of award-winning films, from Jude, to Welcome to Sarajevo, through to Wonderland, Twenty-Four-Hour Party People, In This World and, more recently, 9 Songs.
For me, this is one of the greatest TV-drama series' of the last decade... as essential & rewarding as the likes of Pennies From Heaven, The Decalogue, The Singing Detective & Twin Peaks (only much less convoluted than those classics) and, is a testament, along with Hillsborough & The Lakes, to the writing talents of Jimmy McGovern. Some would argue that the series went downhill after his departure, with Abbot's episodes, Best Boys & True Romance, often featuring fairly low on fan's "top-ten" episode polls, though I think this has more to do with the mammoth task of returning to something low-key after the escalating melodrama of To Be A Somebody, Men Should Weep & Brotherly Love (...as it happens, I'm quite fond of Best Boys... particularly the astonishing performance work of John Simm & Liam Cunningham in the central roles).
Although it has no extra-features, this DVD box set is still a must-have purchase, with Cracker still seeming as intelligent, interesting & emotionallly affecting ten-years on, as it no doubt seemed when first broadcast over a decade ago.
British Criminal Drama at its best - By: Shawade, 07 Mar 2007 If you are like me then you grew up with Robbie C in the Young Ones & the Comic Strip - right? Could you ever have imagined him less than a decade later playing a tough but compromised psychologist drawn into Manchester's crime world through results & building reputation?
No of course not.
This is what Robbie Coltrane does so well; building the character (possibly with Jimmy Mc's help of course) into the story line & seeing strong development as the series progressed. His character acting is simply inspired.
Stories are typical Mr McGovern, strong, powerful & ever-so-slightly unbelievable with characters to match.
Very powerful, excellent British crime drama. Do they write like this anymore? With the exception of the McGovern Cracker episode penned & aired a year or so ago (included here) & possibly the last of the Prime Suspect films, probably not. Turn off your reality TV stuff & plug into this. When you are done with alll Cracker, go get Prime Suspect & do the same again; More strong stories, charatcers & early 90's fashions/cars/mobile phones.
....If, on the other hand you know Robbie Coltrane best as a huge bearded school caretaker with a passion for owls & spiders... well you are either too young to watch Fitz or you are old enough to have kids of your own... :)
Highly, highly recommended.
British drama at it's best - By: Stuart, 07 Feb 2007 I can remember when cracker was on TV & was highly praised. I didn't see any episodes at the time but was bought this box set for christmas. It's about a brilliant criminal psychologist with a flawed personality callled Fitz (played brilliantly by Robbie Coltrane) who works for the Manchester police. It deserves alll the praise it received at the time. The most famous & best episode in the box set is "To be a somebody". The only weak episodes are "best boys" & "white ghost" but despite that cracker remains one of the best british dramas ever.
Cracker - By: Paul Richard, 29 Dec 2006 Our hero here is a fat, sweaty, womanising, gambling alcoholic. The setting is slate-grey dreary, gritty Manchester. The subject matter is murder & rape, race & kidnap. Yet is it uplifting to watch because the quality of the series, particularly in the early episodes is so delightfully rare.
The episodes are `why dunnits' rather then `who dunnits' & it is Fitz, played brilliantly by Robbie Coltrane is a genius psychologist with a rare gift to unravel a criminal mind, that plays them out. From the start of the series, when we watch him give a lecture & throw books at students, it is clear he is a magnetic character. What makes him so likable is his brutal honesty & his inability to conform.
However, it is the whole package that makes `Cracker' so essential. The scripts, Jimmy McGovern are superb. He is a national treasure.
There is also the strength of the supporting cast. In particular, I liked the characters of Jane `Panhandle' Penhaligan, & DCI Bilborough, (Christopher Eccleston in one of his finest roles) & the unhinged D.S Jimmy Beck.
The greatest episodes are when these characters are involved & when McGovern writes. These episodes in themselves warrant the highest mark possible for this collection. The quality tails off slightly after this but the series is always engrossing.
This box set does not offer any extras, but I doubt that many people will care. This is simply British drama at its finest, & essential viewing.
