Luther

Luther: The Fallen Sun turns the BBC crime series into a loopy horror show, with Andy Serkis as a billionaire baddie using the internet like a Black Mirror ...

Fallen Sun is a condensed, balls-to-the-wall reinvention of the Luther viewers know and love, with the sadism and showmanship turned up to 11, and some classic internet nightmare-fuel thrown in for good measure. It imagines a police vigilante who fights the worst parts of the institution he represents in order to catch killers and protect the vulnerable. The Fallen Sun takes that dynamic to the next level, making its villain not only a sadistic killer, but an untouchable billionaire with an army and a secret Bond-movie-style Norwegian underground lair. And it’s a playground for a delightfully demented performance from Serkis, who chews scenery just as consistently as his character inventively kills innocent people just to toy with Luther. Thanks to the long-form nature of the original TV series, there’s time for him to make connections and friendships, alliances and enemies. Filmmakers have drooled over the lurid possibilities of the Red Room myth for decades now, making The Fallen Sun feel like a throwback to ’00s horror like My Little Eye, FeardotCom, Cry_Wolf, and Untraceable. Returning to the role that won him a Golden Globe and four Emmy nominations, Idris Elba is still a force to be reckoned with as the titular cop. But his grimy underground torture rooms filled with camcorders, designed to please creepy online men around the world, feel like a remnant of internet fearmongering long since past. Directed by Jamie Payne and written by series creator Neil Cross, The Fallen Sun begins with a perfect example of the sort of nightmare-inducing setup that made Luther such a hit. Luther is a policeman who’s so violent, the only way to justify his vigilante actions is to put him up against the most heinous and outlandish crimes imaginable. With his gruffly charming London accent and near-constant fury, Elba is still infinitely watchable as the explosive, justice-hungry cop. It’s a choice that works on multiple levels: We’re left to think the worst, or in more tragic circumstances, decide the victim’s shame was misplaced, making it even easier to exploit.

Idris Elba has returned as John Luther in "Luther: The Fallen Sun," a film continuation of the popular BBC show. It is now available on Netflix.

[Neil Cross](/topic/neil-cross), the show's creator, has written "Luther: The Fallen Sun". The views expressed here are that of the respective authors/ entities and do not represent the views of Economic Times (ET). The show has returned to the screen with "Luther: The Fallen Sun" after a four-year hiatus since the series finale was aired on BBC. On March 10, the film made its streaming debut, after a limited release on February 24 in theaters. This movie resumes with the protagonist, John Luther, who is disgraced and currently serving time in prison after the original series’s events. While the film has received generally positive reviews, some critics have criticized it as a potentially needless attempt at reimagining a story that has already concluded.

The iconic trench coat flutters in the wind as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther stands tall on a terrace overlooking London's cityscape.

Robey tackled Luther and tried to escape, but by the time he got to the surface, he was trapped underneath the ice sheet. Mark and Raine reminded Luther that it was time for him to surrender himself to the law, and Luther obeyed their order. He activated the burn mode in the room and tried to hold the mother and daughter back. The car drowned in the lake with Robey and Luther in it. Five of his victims had befriended a man in his 40s, and the man had always discussed with them how his wife had burned to death in a house fire in Eccleston Square. Derek handed over a phone that he used to contact the person, and Luther had a day to figure out his location. The police aimed to arrest Luther and Robey, but the sudden series of suicides in the Square led to mayhem. Derek realized that he had been catfished and that the man he was with was sent by someone else. Luther learned that Derek was sent the transmitter by courier and was asked to run it for twenty-four hours. He offers Luther an important clue to solving the puzzle; he mentions that he met Luther at a bus stop and offered him a mint, which he gladly accepted. After listening to the killer’s taunt and watching Corinne breakdown in front of him, Luther was more determined than ever to find a way to get hold of the madman. The killer recorded the audio with Luther in mind and taunts him for his inability to solve the crime.

Sometime later, the team led by newly appointed Director of Criminal Investigation Odette Raine discovers the charred remains of eight more victims—Callum among ...

John Luther been thrown in prison while a horrific serial killer taunts him in the shadows, looking for another victim to kill. We’re also told of a woman who was severely burned, and we see the gruesome burn marks. A woman is zip-tied and knocked to the ground. We see one such person be stabbed, and we see a girl be choked repeatedly with a plastic bag. We hear the horrific screams of a 17-year-old boy as he is murdered. We see an artistic representation of a crucifixion victim. Luther threatens to “tattoo a man’s eye,” holding a needle extremely close to the man’s pupil before backing down. That fact, spurred on by a mocking message sent by the killer to Luther, is something that seems strange to him. When a man watches pornography in private, we see that he’s being recorded by someone and is marked as a potential target for their next blackmail victim. The boy is just one of many victims who’ve fallen into the hands of a serial killer who’s quickly gaining notoriety. Another victim is likely killed after being hit multiple times in the head with a hammer. When he arrives, he meets a gay man who tells him of how he had talked about pornographic fantasies with another man and planned a night of indulgence with him.

With major spoilers, we break down the climactic events, series throwbacks and future hints of the Luther movie, out now on Netflix.

Whoever it is, it’s safe to say that Luther is moving up in the world – and will no longer be limited to the streets of London. He spooks the viewers by revealing that their IP addresses are being tracked and that the police are on their way to the bunker, before taking out one of the henchmen with the hammer. [The Fallen Sun](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/luther-the-fallen-sun-review/), we discover that Luther had been investigating the disappearance of a young man who’d been abducted by David Robey during or just before the events of Series 5. With a first movie and a new government job under Luther’s belt, it very much seems like the ball is in Netflix’s court. “If I may, unofficially, you did a commendable job,” he says, as Luther replies, “So, now what?” – a nice little callback that references the opening/closing line of most of the show’s five series. The answer, in a word, is no. Before he does, Luther taunts Robey, brilliantly dubbing him a “sweaty anxious twat” in the way that only Elba can and telling him that his own shame has been brought to light. He had built a “Red Bunker” under the snowy wilds of Norway, hidden from the outside world, where he would broadcast live “shows” to high-paying subscribers on the dark web. While the photo of Luther standing over a dead hitman didn’t quite tell the full story (Cornelius actually pulled the trigger), it presumably did blow open the fact that he’d been aiding and abetting a known criminal – and seemed like the smoking gun that would finally send Luther down. Luther and DCI Odette Raine (Cynthia Erivo), who’s now heading up his former unit, track down Robey’s hidden house of horrors thanks to information from his long-suffering wife. Let’s take a look at where we find Luther by the end of A twisted tech genius with dodgy hair and an even dodgier fashion sense, Robey is luring his victims by hijacking their digital footprints and using their deepest, darkest secrets – or as he calls it, their “shame” – against them.

In a meta scene roughly halfway through Luther: The Fallen Sun, Idris Elba is offered a glass of martini, and he refuses pointedly —preferring, instead, ...

Luther: The Fallen Sun is, for all intents and purposes a feature-length season of the show. But Luther: The Fallen Sun is still a well-put-together film featuring Elba once again giving a magnetic performance. He is something of a cad (as the Brits would say), all right. Once he spots Luther investigating one of his murders, he decides to get him out of the picture. I have fallen in love with and out of the original TV series more times than I care to count. In a meta scene roughly halfway through Luther: The Fallen Sun, Idris Elba is offered a glass of martini, and he refuses pointedly —preferring, instead, a glass of water.

Idris Elba once again proves that he doesn't need to be James Bond when he's John Luther, but the film seems more like yet another episode of the series ...

Yes, Luther is still Luther, and we see nuggets of great action sequences and moments that remind us of why we cheered for him in the first place. The film is definitely larger in scale thanks to more budget, and Idris Elba’s Luther needed to come out of the small screen. Luther is a series that is known for playing around with the format, having been able to tell a story in two episodes (fourth season)or six (first season). Meanwhile, the identity of the serial killer is revealed right at the beginning, making it more of a cat-and-mouse game than a whodunit; an idea that was as impressive as it was in the show as it is in the movie. Luther is confronted by the victim’s loved one for not keeping the promise (Luther didn’t learn from season four’s Megan Cantor). We are told that Luther wasn’t arrested at the construction site by Schenk, but that he was arrested while pursuing a new case instead: the kidnapping of a young man named Callum Aldrich.

An obsessed investigator or a flawed vigilante. Who exactly is DCI John Luther? The layers of his character are as thick as the coat he wears and as deep ...

Alice helped John rescue Benny, and in order to put an end to the beef, John took George’s son back home. Yes, Alice didn’t give the same weight to justice as John did, and it was the single most important factor that destroyed their relationship. Alice showed the mirror to Luther and told him that what he did to Henry Madsen was the same thing she did to her parents because, in the eyes of the law, murder is murder. On the other hand, Alice failed to kill George, and for her failure, she blamed John Luther, as he could have pulled the trigger when he had the opportunity, but he didn’t. What Alice saw in Luther was an expanding black hole that was ready to consume the whole world, and it could be said that it was Alice who made Luther realize the fragile ground he was treading upon. At this moment, John was at his most vulnerable, almost on the verge of crossing the lines of morality, and thus his “Yin” paid a visit. When she came to London, she abducted George’s son and demanded the money that she had been promised. John was always wrong, and by the time he accepted this fact, it was too late. John Luther is a walking curse, and he is in denial of this fact. It is said that it is one’s choices that define one’s character, and here, John’s choice was to not save a criminal. Alice is someone we find similar to James Moriarty (in the case of Sherlock) or the Joker (in the case of Batman). The layers of his character are as thick as the coat he wears and as deep as an all-consuming black hole.