Luther: The Fallen Sun

In the continuing adventures of Detective Chief Inspector John Luther of the London Metropolitan Police Service, there comes a moment when a character wearily asks, “Now what?” That question, often in response to yet another complication or plot reversal, also doubles as a larger inquiry into what direction the BBC drama goes next.

Inspired by the Scandinavian crime revival of the late 2000s – from authors like Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø, and TV shows like Forbrydelsen and The Bridge – Luther, as created and written by British writer/showrunner Neil Cross, casts Idris Elba as a brilliant but perennially besieged copper investigating grisly murders whilst hanging on to his moral compass for dear life (search warrants and due process be damned). The thing with Luther is, he’s hardwired to save the world, but for every potential murder victim he manages to rescue, he loses an average of 1½ co-workers, sometimes an ex-wife, in the process. As an engaging Elba delivery device, Luther was fun escapism, especially when it involved his recurring love interest/foil, killer sociopath Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), and the rogues’ gallery of serial murderers that Cross created were almost always involved in some high-death-count, alarmist scenario involving technology run amok, and without fail suffered from an obscure, deranged paraphilia. It was entertaining television for the five seasons – sorry, series – that irregularly aired in the last decade.

So now what? Cross and Elba have aligned their working schedules, and now return to their wool-coat-and-jeans-wearing protagonist, making the leap to a feature film. Well, not quite a leap; it’s a bit more of a shuffle, really, since the third series of the TV show had less run time than this film. This film being Luther: The Fallen Sun, which is a reference to either the narrative’s third-act finale in Norway or a wince-inducing scene that moves from day to night in the middle of the action. Either way, it feels more like a portent to the waning sustainability of the franchise.

Nevertheless, we find DCI Luther just doing his job, investigating a seemingly random bit of ultraviolence that turns out to be a dense and convoluted plot to wreak chaos unto humankind, masterminded by day trader-turned-cyberterrorist (huh?) David Robey (Serkis). Robey’s plot involves an army of hackers in office cubicles surveilling everyone’s day-to-day life via computer, phone, baby monitor, refrigerator, etc. to discover their deepest, most humiliating secrets, and then to blackmail them. And while the blackmail might be money, more often it is favors and tasks that Robey compels them to do. Like, say, reluctantly participating in dark web, “red room” kill games where the online viewers vote to decide how the people die. As Robey gleefully explains under the helmet of an Eighties primetime soap opera hairstyle that absolutely refuses to be ignored, the fear of shame has superseded the fear of death in contemporary society, hence the willingness of everyone to step in line with Robey’s psychopathic plans. Aiding Luther, but hanging off Robey’s blackmail hook herself, is his boss, Odette Raine (the wonderful Erivo, wasted). Meanwhile, Luther’s old boss Schenk (Crowley) is still poking around, a sad reminder that Luther was once an engaging police drama. Luther: The Fallen Sun is not.

One of the main pleasures of the TV series was how Cross and co. always had Luther caught in the crosscurrents of two conflicting agendas, and the tension of that juggling act provided much of the pleasure, especially when it all (mostly) worked out. Fallen Sun is a rote and simpleminded letdown by comparison, and when the film’s final moments tease further, higher-stakes exploits, it’s a perfectly fitting response to mutter with a sigh, “What now?”