MIKE WARD’S SMALL SCREEN
HARLAN COBEN’S THE STRANGER
(Netflix Originals) ★★★★
THIS fine eight-part thriller stars Richard Armitage as a guy whose cosy life is about to be ripped apart – thanks to the revelations of a random stranger who approaches him in a bar.
Unable to get this mysterious woman’s words out of his head, he starts to question everything he thought he knew about his wife and their seemingly solid marriage.
Other stars include
Kadiff Kirwan, Siobhan Finneran, Jennifer Saunders and Hannah John-Kamen.
AD ASTRA (12)
(Download, DVD and Blu-ray)
★★★★
BRAD Pitt stars in this tremendous sci-fi adventure, about an astronaut’s journey of self-discovery.
As spaceman Roy McBride, he goes on a journey deep into the unknown, searching for the truth behind a doomed mission undertaken by his father (Tommy Lee Jones) several decades earlier.
HIS DARK MATERIALS: SEASON ONE (12)
(DVD)
★★★★
RECENTLY shown on BBC One, this adaptation of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy stars Dafne Keen as Lyra, an orphan whose search for her kidnapped friend draws her into a world of fiendish folk and wanton weirdness.
THE OPERATIVE (15)
(Download and DVD)
★★★
MARTIN Freeman and Diane Kruger star in this so-so psychological thriller. Kruger plays a Mossad agent sent undercover in Iran, only to go rogue and cause her bosses to have kittens, albeit not literal ones.
Freeman, her one-time handler, must figure out how big a threat she poses. EDGE OF THE AXE
(18)
(Blu-ray)
★★
ON Blu-ray for the first time, this gruesome late-80s effort features an axe-wielding psychopath rapidly reducing the population of a rural Californian community.