Review: Netflix’s “Bodyguard” an Addictive Thriller Series

Streaming giant Netflix regularly acquires content from overseas to feature as “originals” on its slate of offerings in the United States. 

The six-episode BBC series “Bodyguard” is one such offering, and it’s a good one. 

My friend Barb Thompson recommended I watch the series — figuring it was something I’d enjoy. I’m glad she did. 

“Bodyguard” is an espionage thriller following the exploits of Police Sergeant David Budd (Richard Madden).

Budd is a war veteran who served in Afghanistan. When “Bodyguard” opens, our protagonist is traveling on a commuter train to London’s Euston Station with his young son and daughter. 

Note: Budd is reading a book on the train titled “A Powerful Adversary” by Lance Sinclair. A cursory Google search revealed that neither the book nor author exists, but it caught my eye: 

Unfortunately for Budd, this isn’t a routine trip, and he finds himself having to thwart a terrorist plot to detonate an explosive device on the train.  

The early moments in “Bodyguard” set the stage for a taut story that combines a geopolitical thriller with a shot of police procedural. 

The result is a contemporary tale harkening back to the glory days of the Kiefer Sutherland series “24” (one of my favorite shows). While the concept guiding “Bodyguard” might not be as novel as “24,” in its prime, the result is just as fresh and intriguing. 

I won’t give away any spoilers, but the meat of the first season finds David Budd assigned as a Protection Command bodyguard for Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes). The hawkish Montague was a strident supporter of the Iraq War — something that creates conflict within Budd, who suffers from PTSD and has certain doubts about his service in Afghanistan. 

Political tensions in Great Britain are at a boiling point due in part to MP Montague’s support for legislation that will impinge on the civil liberties of the citizenry (in an effort to provide more comprehensive surveillance to law enforcement agencies). 

Budd soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy where nothing is as it seems. He starts to question his friends, co-workers, and associates as he struggles to keep things together, and do his bit for queen and country. 

Madden does a solid job playing a war veteran about to come unhinged in “Bodyguard.” There is a quiet intensity to his performance. He does a good job alternating between heroic and tragic as he navigates the narrative during the six-episode first season.

I’ll be honest... I wasn’t familiar with actor Richard Madden before I watched “Bodyguard.” He apparently starred in the HBO series “Game of Thrones” (playing Robb Stark) and has received a number of award nominations for his work. 

Madden just won a Golden Globe for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama” for his performance as P.S. Budd in “Bodyguard” (the show was also nominated for “Best Television Series - Drama”). 

The accolades are well deserved, in my opinion. 

“Bodyguard” was quite popular when it aired in Great Britain on BBC One, and Richard Madden has hinted in interviews that a second season is in development.

It’s no secret that I’m something of an Anglophile when it comes to my TV viewing preferences. “Bodyguard” is right up my alley in that regard. More than that, it is a terrific thriller perfectly suited to binge watching. 

Definitely worth your time. 

Previous post: "Book Review: 'A is for Astronaut' By Astronaut Clayton Anderson"

Book Review: "A is for Astronaut" By Astronaut Clayton Anderson

A friend of ours was kind enough to get Bridget and me an autographed copy of Nebraska-bred astronaut Clayton Anderson's new children's picture book "A is for Astronaut" at the Scoops of Support event for the Nebraska Friends of Foster Children fundraiser last year at eCreamery.

The book is more than a space-based journey through the alphabet, in rhyme and verse. Each section of the book also features a few paragraphs of fact-based information on the space program that adults and older kids will enjoy as well. 

"A is for Astronaut" features a series of colorful illustrations by artist Scott Brundage. 

I must admit that it has been a long time since I received a children's book as a gift. It brings back memories of my mom reading books to me when I was little — something I have vivid memories of to this day. 

Those stories stick with you in a way that later reading fails to match. 

Here's hoping "A is for Astronaut" encourages a generation of young people to reach for the stars.

Previous post: "Book Review: 'Past Tense' By Lee Child"

Book Review: “Past Tense” By Lee Child

“That's the problem with denial. Reality doesn't care what you think. It just keeps rolling.” — Jack Reacher in “Past Tense”

I’m happy to say that Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel “Past Tense” is a return to form for the author.

I spent quite a bit of time during the first quarter of 2018 getting caught up on Child’s thrillers in anticipation of the author’s speaking engagement at UNO’s Baxter Arena last April. There were a few I hadn’t read (some old, some new), and “binge reading” them proved to be an informative experience. 

Child’s 2016 and 2017 novels — “Night School” and “The Midnight Line” — left me wanting. They didn’t have the same depth possessed some of his earlier works. That was particularly true with “The Midnight Line” — which felt more like a treatise on opioid addiction than a nuanced Reacher thriller. 

“Past Tense” finds inimitable protagonist Jack Reacher wandering the United States — as the retired military policeman is wont to do. In this instance, Reacher is trying to make his way from Maine to San Diego. A nice, diagonal line across the country. 

Along the journey, he sees a sign for a place he’s never been — Laconia, New Hampshire, where his father was born. Reacher decides to make a pit stop in the town to see if he can learn more about the man. 

In a parallel narrative, Canadian couple Patty Sundstrom and Shorty Fleck are traveling to New York City along the same highways and byways of New Hampshire in a rundown Honda. The two soon find themselves stranded with a broken down car at a small motel run by a group of peculiar men who prove far too friendly — one of them has the “Reacher” surname. 

As Jack Reacher digs up clues about his family’s past — and as the young couple tries to repair their vehicle and leave the motel — all sorts of nefarious deeds (past and present) come bubbling to the surface.

The novel’s two storylines don’t intersect until the latter stages of “Past Tense,” but both are compelling in their own right.

Small Town U.S.A is familiar territory for Child. In most instances, Child’s story structure generally stays firmly planted on Jack Reacher’s point of view (even when employing the third person narrative). He typically offers “peeks around the corner” into what other characters are doing. 

Structurally speaking, “Past Tense” was a bit different in that regard. The storyline involving Patty and Shorty could have been a novel all its own. 

In some respects, that style feels a bit closer to watching a multi-episode TV series unfold. It’s something worth noting, since Lee Child recently revealed Skydance Media is developing a Jack Reacher television series:

As always with my book reviews, I won’t give up any spoilers. 

“Past Tense” is full of recognizable Reacher tropes, wrapping them all up in a story that involves disparate elements like bird watching societies, ghost towns, and a subplot resembling Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” (a story I revisited recently when one of my nieces was reading it for a school assignment).

For the past decade, Child’s Jack Reacher series has been among my favorite thriller properties. If you are uninitiated in the world of Reacherverse, it’s well worth visiting. 

Child has created one of the most compelling protagonists in fiction. I’m happy that “Past Tense” gets the series back on track. 

Previous post: "Visiting the George H.W. Bush Union Pacific Locomotive No. 4141"

Visiting the George H.W. Bush Union Pacific Locomotive No. 4141

On Dec. 11, Bridget and I took a trek to downtown Omaha to see locomotive No. 4141 — the engine that carried the body of former President George H.W. Bush to his presidential library in College Station, TX. 

Omaha is the headquarters of Union Pacific Railroad (they have a beautiful building downtown). 

The train was on display at Union Pacific’s Home Plate (just north of TD Ameritrade Park). It is custom painted and was first unveiled in 2005 — using the colors of Air Force One. The “4141” designation was given the locomotive to honor the 41st president. 

The car behind the engine (emblazoned with the U.S. flag) is a converted baggage car called the “Council Bluffs” (it was fitted with transparent panels in Texas to allow mourners to view Bush’s casket). For those reading the blog who don’t know, the city of Council Bluffs sits right across the Missouri River from Omaha.

Union Pacific is having the locomotve travel the U.P. rail system to give employees a chance to see the train. Word is that the locomotive will be placed next to the presidential library in Texas. 

ABC’s Houston affiliate put together this informative video on engine 4141:

It was neat to get to experience a piece of presidential history. Union Pacific is an important employer in Omaha, and it was an honor that they brought locomotive No. 4141 to our city. 

Previous post: "Movie Review: 'Aquaman' is 20,000 Leagues Under Marvel"

Movie Review: “Aquaman” is 20,000 Leagues Under Marvel

I really wanted to like it. 

I tried. 

The new Warner Bros. comic book extravaganza is a 2-hour-and-23-minute water-logged mess.

The entire movie is over-Photoshopped, over-orchestrated, and over-long. 

If you are someone who saw the scenes of Jar Jar Binks’s underwater home in “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” and said, “Damn! I wish they’d make a two-and-a-half hour movie of this!” — then you’ll probably be happy with “Aquaman.”

I suppose we need a DC Universe movie every so often to remind us that Marvel owns the “secret sauce” on superhero movies. 

Granted, the filmmakers tried. They did their level best to make a deep-sea world that was an underwater version of Thor’s Asgard. 

But instead it was just an indecipherable mishmash of “undersea kingdoms” that were largely indecipherable from one another (I mean, other than the world that was ruled by crabs). 

King Orm (Patrick Wilson) wants to unite all the nautical kingdoms and go to war with land dwellers — who continually pollute and ravage the oceans. 

Dolph Lundgren plays King Nereus — leader of another Atlantean tribe who is united with Orm in his quest. 

(Honestly, Dolph is one of the best things in the movie.)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

The movie starts off with a lighthouse keeper (Temeura Morrison, who played Jango Fett in “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones”) rescuing an underwater princess named Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) during a storm. 

The two have a kid. The kid is named Arthur Curry. He is the bastard child destined to rule the underwater world of Atlantis. Eventually, the lighthouse is attacked and Atlanna leaves to keep her son safe — never to be heard from again. 

Arthur, when he grows up, is a well-meaning brute — trained to be a deep-sea warrior by his mother’s advisor Nuidis Vulko (Willem Defoe), but is rejected by Atlantean society for being a half-breed. 

Eventually, a woman named Mera (Amber Heard) comes from the sea to tell the adult Arthur (Jason Mamoa) that they need him to take control of the kingdom and save the world from King Orm’s sinister plan. 

I’m not going to give you an entire rundown of what goes on. “Aquaman” blends Thor-like “mythology” with Tolkien-esque “world building.” 

Along the way, it sort of becomes an Indiana Jones movie as Arthur and Mera hunt for a special trident. By that point, they could have been looking for a vintage package of Trident gum and I wouldn’t have known the difference. 

It’s quite possible I’ve lost touch with what appeals to today’s younger set. A handful of people applauded after the 2:30 p.m. showing I attended. It made me wonder if I had been missing something.  

Kevin Feige and the crew at Marvel understand how to make superhero movies. They know how to craft stories that appeal to more than video-game-loving fanboys. 

It’s really hard for me to willfully suspend my disbelief when I look at a movie and ponder things like “layer opacity,” “Gaussian blur,” “unsharp masks,” and “digital grain” as I look at action scenes that feel like they employ every filter available in Adobe Photoshop.

(I use Photoshop for a living, so I’m allowed to notice these things.)

The film is directed by James Wan, who did a “Fast and Furious” movie and some popular horror flicks like “The Conjuring.” 

Wan and the writers try to bring us a fun and colorful movie like “Thor: Ragnarok,” but most of the jokes fall flat. Unlike Marvel, the whole never feels more than the sum of its parts. 

Watching a bunch of CG-manipulated characters fight to be “Ocean Master” in “Aquaman” lacks the deft touch found in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

“Aquaman” would have been far more compelling if they’d found a way to keep the story grounded in the real world. Quite honestly, the “above water” sequences in the film are the most compelling in the narrative. 

If you want to see a terrific superhero movie about the fight to be king of a “secret world,” do yourself a favor and watch “Black Panther” again (arguably the best superhero movie of 2018 — read my review). 

Again, I understand the filmmakers were trying to make a cheesy 1980s cartoon. Unfortunately, the the timing in the film felt off, and the pacing was sluggish in certain sequences. 

I haven’t yet seen all the holiday blockbusters, but in the battle between “Aquaman” and “Bumblebee,” I’m gonna have to give the edge to the Autobot (read my full review of “Bumblebee”). 

Some of you might disagree with me about “Aquaman.” If you do, that’s great. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d encourage you to check it out for yourself and see if I’m way off base. 

In my mind, it was 20,000 leagues under the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Previous post: "Review: 'Stranger Things 2' Retro-Styled Box Set (4K Blu-ray + Blu-ray)

Review: “Stranger Things 2” Retro-Styled Box Set (4K Blu-ray + Blu-ray)

The year came and went without a new edition of Netflix’s wildly enjoyable series “Stranger Things.”

The only morsels fans of the show sampled this year were the “Starcourt Mall” teaser trailer (which I reviewed on July 17) and a “title tease” released on Dec. 9:

While the first two seasons are currently streaming on Netflix, Target has an exclusive deal to distribute the series on disc. Since I have a love of physical media — and neat box sets — I picked up the second season of “Stranger Things.”

Like last season’s box set (which I reviewed in a post titled “‘Stranger Things’ Season 1 Box Set Brings the Old School Cool”), this year’s set looks like an old VHS cassette tape. 

The packaging looks like something you would have picked up at a video rental store, complete with textured plastic holding the cover art, and stickers encouraging you to “rewind” before returning. Brings back memories of perusing the aisles of Applause Video back in the day.

When you flip open the cover, you are greeted with what appears to be a red VHS cassette tape — which looks surprisingly realistic in the photos I took. 

This set includes both the 4K Blu-ray version and an HD Blu-ray set of all nine season 2 episodes. Each set of discs is stored “stacked” below the “red cassette” cover flap.

The set also includes a five collectible photos — stored in a flap beneath the box cover.

I can’t wait for season 3 of “Stranger Things” to drop on Netflix next year. It is arguably the most compelling original program the streaming giant offers, and I hope the long gap between seasons is worth the wait. 

In the meantime, these box sets (both currently available at Target) should tide fans over until fresh episodes arrive. 

Previous post: "Movie Review: 'Bumblebee'"

Movie Review: “Bumblebee”

If you’ve maxed out fresh ideas in a franchise, one way to rekindle the fun is to go back in the past and do a prequel. 

That’s what the people behind the “Transformers” films decided to do with “Bumblebee.”

“Bumblebee” takes us back to 1987, when everything goes to hell on the planet Cybertron and the Autobots (about to lose a civil war to the Decepticons) make preparations to leave for earth. Autobot leader Optimus Prime sends a scout to earth — B-127, who crash lands in California, has a run-in with government agents, and is pursued by a pair of Decepticons. 

The yellow-and-black transformer takes the shape of a 1960s-era Volkswagen Beetle and soon befriends a teenage girl named Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) after she discovers the Beetle under a tarp at a salvage lot. 

The story is like a robot version of “E.T.” wrapped up in all the conventions of an action movie and a teen melodrama.

Charlie lost her father to a heart attack, has to deal with an all-too-sugary stepfather, and is something of a brooding outcast among her peers. She finds solace tinkering with an old Corvette she and her dad tried to get running when he was alive. 

There are a number of plot points pulled from “E.T.” I won’t get into them all, but Charlie has to keep the B-127 (who she soon refers to as “Bumblebee”) under wraps in her family garage. He eventually gets from the garage into the home’s interior, and inadvertently trashes the house.

Charlie also has to keep the robot away from nefarious government operatives (led by Agent Burns, in what was likely the “easiest money” actor John Cena has ever made). 

There are 80s songs strewn throughout the narrative, along with references to the movie “The Breakfast Club.”

I’ll admit I’m a fan of the “Transformers” movie series. I know movie-goers often deride the cheesiness of the previous entries in the franchise, but I enjoy the silly fun. 

“Bumblebee” has a narrowed focus from its predecessors, and I thought this latest outing was entertaining — even if it lacks in the plausibility department.

Director Travis Knight (who started a cutting-edge stop-motion animation company that produced the animated film “Kubo and the Two Strings”) delivers a film that fits in with Michael Bay’s universe, while at the same time paying respects to the first generation of toys and animation. 

He breaks down the retro designs in “Bumblebee” in this IGN video:

You need to check your brain at the door when you see “Bumblebee” (as with previous “Transformers” movies). Be that as it may, I found the overall production enjoyable. 

Hailee Steinfeld did a yeoman’s job with the material (the script was written by Christina Hodson — which underwent a rewrite by “The Edge of Seventeen” scribe Kelly Fremon Craig). Despite the fact that it is a cheeseball action movie, her performance was one of the best things about “Bumblebee.”

If you are looking for something fun to see at your local multiplex this holiday season, you could do worse than “Bumblebee.” While it isn’t high art, it is mindless entertainment that captures what a “Transformers” movie should be (and could be without director Michael Bay at the helm). 

Previous post: "Movie Review: 'Creed II' Hits and Misses"