Mark Reviews Movies: LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN

Luther: The Fallen Sun, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 24, 2023

Neil Cross definitely was on to something when he created John Luther, a London-based police detective with a sixth sense for the moral character of others but a level of personal moral certainty that often put him—technically or egregiously—on the wrong side of the law. The creator of "Luther" was on to something even stronger with the casting of Idris Elba in that role. Elba is an actor whose presence is a font of charisma, intelligence, and rigor, so even when the series started to lose its focus as seasons progressed with limited episodes and multiple subplots to juggle, the central character remained a sturdy anchor of intrigue.

Thankfully, one doesn't need to know Cross' television series to understand the particulars of the characters and plot of its feature-length spin-off Luther: The Fallen Sun. It's obvious that Cross' screenplay wants to put as much of the series, with its requirements to provide hours of plotting when a couple would be enough for the basics and four isn't nearly enough another subplot or two, behind it as possible.

Luther, who's only a police detective in mind and spirit at the start of this movie, might have been better suited to movies from the start. While this first feature-length adventure for the character has to clean up some of the mess left at the end of the series and is still getting its bearings as to how Luther fits into this new scheme, it's a promising start to what Cross clearly wants to be a continuing franchise.

For those who don't know what happened to Luther at the end of the last season of the show, this movie both explains and gives it an entirely new context. As it turns out, Luther was in the middle of two high-profile investigations before meeting what seemed to be his inevitable fate as a morally righteous but legally shaky cop. One was a pair of serial killers, who are acknowledged here just so fans of the show don't get into this thinking that Cross has erased everything about those previous years of story.

The other, introduced here, is a missing teenager. The young man is abducted off the street after being blackmailed by David (Andy Serkis), a sociopath who uses some farm of hackers in order to or is part of some network of like-minded people that uncover people's darkest secrets and use them against those people for nefarious ends. Again, Cross has a lot to cover, so the logistics of this are a bit fuzzy.

Anyway, David makes the detective's downfall his highest priority. That's what gets an investigation into Luther going, and the end result is that the cop ends up in prison.

Luther's old boss Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley) retires, making room for Odette Raine (Cynthia Erivo) to take the reins of Luther's old department. When the serial blackmailer/abductor/murderer contacts the disgraced former detective via a radio transmission in his prison cell, Luther makes it his priority to catch the guy before he can start his master plan in motion.

If this seems like a lot of plotting, it is, and on top of that, keep in mind all of this is just the setup for the lengthy chase and game of cat-and-mouse that follows. After a relatively quick prison break, Luther finds himself back on the streets, with all of his gear—his beat-up car and wrinkled suit—and a newfound determination to set his failures right. Meanwhile, David works on enacting grisly spectacle after gruesome showcase of his amoral proclivities, and Raine sets out to track down both the killer and the fugitive former detective.

There isn't much new here, but Cross' screenplay is an occasionally neat potboiler, especially in the way it harnesses concerns about the absence of privacy in our tech-heavy world and age-old ones about the destructive nature of shame. One setpiece, which has David eluding capture in Piccadilly Circus by way of scheduled death and chaos, is such a horror show of the marriage of technology and blackmail-inspired terror that it barely matters the logistics of it raise more questions than Cross could probably answer. Director Jamie Payne (who helmed several episodes of the series) keeps things moving, which is vital for us to not ask such questions, while also adding a level of polish to the show's gritty look and dread atmosphere that lets us know the material has moved past its TV roots.

Serkis makes for a creepy, if underdeveloped (There simply is too much setup to really dig into the character or his plans), villain, and Erivo does what she can with a thankless role—although, thankfully, that's enough. The return of Crowley's character from the show doesn't do much more than add some comfort to its fans, but the actor's presence, as an old boss who's equal parts weary and admiring of our protagonist, is welcome.

It's Elba, of course, who guides and defines this material, and just as the series eventually glossed over Luther's strengths as a detective, the movie still seems to be trying to figure out what role the character will play in whatever these new circumstances might be for him. Luther: The Fallen Sun serves as a somewhat-entertaining start to this new cycle, but it's still—and unmistakably—just a start.

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