Conspiracy, betrayal, and revenge in the global telecom industry
Someone is blowing up mobile-phone towers across England.
Messages scrawled in blood-red paint at the scenes procl that
mobile phones are the instruments of the devil. Whats more, a
man -- or men -- is shooting cell phone users in
mid-conversation. Baffled investigators scramble to avert
public panic.
In four interlocking parts, this tense drama peels back the
layers of a terrorist conspiracy, gradually revealing the evil at
its core. We follow three characters -- a disgraced telecom
executive (Michael Kitchen, Foyles War), a bitter ex-soldier
(Jamie Draven, Billy Elliot), and a disgruntled engineer (Neil
Fitzmaurice, Going Off Big Time) -- all united by circumstance or
collusion. In a style reminiscent of C, the narrative moves
backward and forward in time, unraveling the three mens complex
motives and their connections to a ruthless self-made millionaire
(Keith Allen, Robin Hood). The result is an ultra-modern thriller
packed with surprising twists and astonishing emotional depth.
.com
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Though riffing on the rage one feels towards obnoxious
cell phone users may sound like a one-liner, this four-part
miniseries is semi-addictive and in fact, it is hard to watch one
50-minute episode without leaping to the next. Mobiles suspense
is built upon an extremely mandarin plot involving the
assassination of people on phones and exploding cell phone
towers, in which both criminals and succumb to corruption
and terrorism. Unlike Blue Murder, another Manchester-set
detective series in which a detective sleuths a different crime
in each episode, director Stuart Orme has laced each segment with
differing crimes committed by various people, so that the main
crime ring and its mastermind is only exposed in the end. In
Episode One, "The Engineer," we meet the first criminal, Eddie
Doig (Neil Fitzmaurice), disgruntled by a brain tumor he has from
cell phone usage, making it logical that he will be the terrorist
throughout. A wonderful performance by Julie Graham, as Eddies
wife Donna, allows the viewer some sympathy for Eddie, though in
subsequent episodes we leap back in time to trace Eddies
involvement in an elusive team of more dangerous men out for
revenge. In Episodes Two and Three, we meet hypnotist Ray Bould
(John Thomson), telecom executive David West (Michael Kitchen),
ex-Army man Maurice Stoan (Jamie Draven), as well as the head
detective on the case, Lorraine Conil (Sunetra Sarker). Each
character plays their part to ensure crimes remain unsolved, or
at least lead to the wrong men. Mobiles plot is so complex that
one marvels at its potential realism. It reminds the viewer of
how difficult terrorism is to pinpoint, expose, and cease, making
Mobiles cell-phone fixation more a metaphor for current
political realities in which cell phones possibly play a major
part. --Trinie Dalton
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