A smoldering Idris Elba is no match for the absurdity of this feature-length Netflix continuation of the popular BBC crime thriller.


Idris Elba has never been able to land a movie role. Exploiting the intimacy and character-building patience of episodic storytelling, Idris Elba has made himself the most memorable character on television thus far with his impossibly charismatic and intimidatingly intelligent style.

The Fallen Sun

He played the title London copper for five seasons on the BBC show "Luther" (2010-19). He was a disturbed, ethically tangled virtuoso who disdained manages and was consistently infatuated with a smooth mental case, splendidly played by Ruth Wilson. Luther walked slowly from frightful crime location to horrible crime location while losing friends and family and grabbing a line of progressively doubtful enemies, every single injured eye and fleece jacket. The person stayed a magnet all through; The show was always trying to find antiheroes who were worthy of him.


And at that very moment, "Luther: Jamie Payne coordinates and Neil Cross, the show's creator and sole author, composes "The Fallen Sun," which wanders, falls, and never recovers. A greater number of laughs than chills are elicited by the bizarre casting of Andy Serkis as the lethal David Robey, a digital sicko with limitless assets and endless mental issues. Robey is even more a disco lord rather than a psychotic cruel person since he was once decked out in a velvet turtleneck and coat and had his hair prodded to seem to be a dead stoat. The scene in "Don't Look Now" (1973) in which the small devil fights Luther on a subway platform while hopping and wearing a hood is beyond absurd.


Luther and Robey are also perturbed by a plot that is so ill-conceived and ill-defined that it fails to materialize. This full length recovery (gushing on Netflix) gets back on track, with Luther going to jail for his steady vigilantism. It secures him and gets him out effortlessly. Robey appears to be assisted by a shadowy group of followers and is busy hacking smart phones and webcams, recording embarrassing secrets, and blackmailing their owners. For people who would rather die than be seen, Robey performs pulpy-style pulpy live-action kill scenes. In a film that starts at a fever pitch and rarely slows down, these grisly interludes, captured by Larry Smith's glowering camera, offer strangely haunting respites from the general chaos of the plot.


"Luther: "Lacking dialogue to develop the characters or their inspirations, The Fallen Sun is overflowing with serial killer-related clichés: a dungeon, an underground safe-house, and a crazy person in a veil. It is impossible to determine precisely what the anonymous losers are watching or how Robey's shady plans are carried out because the movie is so packed and disjointed. Perhaps Netflix has endeavored to shoehorn an entire season of television into scarcely two hours.


Despite the fact that the final product is more cinematic, it is still infinitely cruder, and the characters are so undeveloped that the possibility of their demise only excites a shrug. Stabilizing factors include Cynthia Erivo's performance as Luther's furious superior and brief glimpses of Dermot Crowley, who returns as the sad superintendent. But Idris Elba himself is the one who brings back happy memories of being huddled in that miserable overcoat in a drenched Piccadilly Circus. I'm not one to shun heroes who have been tortured or exquisite tailoring.