You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would say, “Yeah, I don’t care for that Idris Elba.” He’s one of our best. What good news it was, then, to hear Elba was returning to one of his most memorable characters: the brilliant but deeply troubled Detective Chief Inspector John Luther, first seen on a 10-episode, two-season series on BBC One in 2010-2011, and then returning for limited-series runs in 2013, 2015 and 2019.
The feature film “Luther: The Fallen Sun” is a continuation of Luther’s saga, and for the first hour or so has the makings of a first-rate noir thriller — but as the body count piles up and the action gets bigger and bigger, even the great John Luther comes perilously close to being overwhelmed by the spectacle in an increasingly ludicrous storyline that favors admittedly stunning and often gruesome visuals in favor of anything approaching plausibility. What starts as an ambitious project striving for the memorable darkness of “The Silence of the Lambs” or “Se7en” turns into something more akin to one of the “Saw” or “Hostel” movies on a bigger budget.
