---SYNOPSIS---
Inspector Frederick Abbeline (Michael Caine) is a very good detective but a very bad drinker. Awoken one morning in a cell by his dogged deputy George Godley (Lewis Collins), it soon becomes clear that his latest case is more urgent than most; the country?s political machinery immediately starts putting pressure on the police force for a swift resolution to what initially appears to be the routine murder of a Whitechapel prostitute.
As Abbeline quickly surmises, ?the victim is not important so the killer must be? and indeed the question of class rapidly rears its ugly head. Abbeline?s immediate superior is of the same East End stock and gives him a certain latitude to operate effectively among his own sort but the Commissioner (Hugh Fraser) presses for results at the behest of the supposed great and good in the government.
Upon examining the initial victim, Abbeline is convinced that this is no ordinary killing, more of a surgical execution.
At points it becomes clear that certain sacrifices have been made to the two-part miniseries format (it?s easy to spot where the little ?peaks? have been written in for the ad breaks) but this does not prove to be too distracting if, as I did, you choose to view it in a single attempt as one movie. Indeed, it?s perhaps best to treat this as a movie as the high production values offer a real sense of 1888 London that many similar series singularly fail to achieve. Period detail is acutely observed in custom, costume and set design, right down to the enormous amounts of equine manure that surely did litter the streets during the days of horse-drawn carts.
Key to this is the central performance of Caine who proves that, in a role where he?s motivated by more than money, he?s one the best actors Britain has ever produced, easily deserving of his Golden Globe award.
---TIDBITS--- (and a comparison to
"From Hell" )
The actual events are in general far more interesting than the love-mates-must-survive-and-meet-in-Ireland idea that sinks the screenplay of
"From Hell". The 3-hour feature (aired in two parts, also on CBS back in 1988) also traces The Ripper as it acknowledges that these findings are not conclusively proved but that the results are substantiated by many leads in the files. For those interested in "From Hell" and the subject itself, this TV 2-parter holds many answers - and the better film. It is only available in Britain on DVD and its original release length is 184 minutes 21 sec in PAL (which is the equivalent of 192 min 2 sec on film/NTSC). Which brings us to the issue of quality.
