Inspector Morse: Driven to Distraction (1990)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Written by Anthony Minghella, based upon characters created by Colin Dexter
Directed by Danny Boyle, Stephen Whittaker
Starring John Thaw, Kevin Whately, Tessa Wojtczak, Richard Huw, Patrick Malahide

Features:

• Biographies
• Filmographies
• Trivia

Released by: BFS
Region: 1
Rating: NR
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Mystery fans will want to rent it.

Two young woman in the Oxford area are murdered, and Morse (Thaw) and company cannot come up with a possible motive, suggesting a psychotic murderer. Searching for what the two ladies might have had in common, Morse's investigations eventually lead him to a local mechanic. In grand Morse fashion, Morse immediately dislikes and therefore suspects him...and then hounds him, even without evidence. At the same time, Morse begins to wonder about his own abilities to drive; is it time to retire his beloved Jaguar? As always, Morse thinks he knows who the killer is before the investigations have hardly begun, but is he right?

This movie/episode is interesting in that, as is sometimes the case, Morse is not much of a "hero." He's not like the brilliant fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in that Morse has much more human reactions to things, even negative traits that get in the way of his investigations in cases such as this one. He is very slow this time, and his dislike of Boynton (Malahide) causes him to be just plain unlikable much of the time. Lewis (Whately) feels that Morse is out of control and doing more to hinder the investigation than to further it, and the tension between the two of them is more the focus of the episode than the actual murders. Lewis has grown up under Morse's wing in a way, and the moment is priceless when Morse realizes that, while he can't let go of his theory, Lewis is right. Morse's alcohol consumption was actually relatively low in this episode, so maybe he was just cranky.

The extras on this disc are like those on earlier Inspector Morse discs. There are select biographies and filmographies of the principles and Colin Dexter, as well as a set of trivia--little-known tidbits of info about the show and the cast. These are nice, but it would be great to include the PDF of the novel as a bonus--although who knows what that would work with licensing fees.

The show looks and sounds great, especially considering that it's almost fifteen years old now. The colors are maybe a little sun-bright, but you have to be looking for problems to find any.

Basically, if you love mysteries, then you'll enjoy this one, as well as all the other Morse mysteries in the series. BFS does a good job with the digitalization and packaging, and the show itself is worth the time it takes to watch it. Alas, Morse is, in general, not always worth multiple viewings, so you'll probably want to rent, but fans of police procedurals might disagree. Fans of shows like Law and Order definitely need to check this one out.