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The Trials of Jimmy Rose stars Ray Winstone as the titular character, getting out of jail after he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit… no, that was actually The A-Team. In Jimmy’s case, he DID do it, and he got a dozen years for armed robbery.
Getting home, his wife Jackie (Amanda Redman) feels distant from him, not sure if she loves him any more, which is rather a kick in the nuts on your first night out of chokey. He’s shunned by one his children – his son, Joe (Tom Cullen); as well as granddaughter Ellie (Montanna Thompson). As time went on, he resorted to drastic tactics, breaking down the iron bars of the front door to get Ellie out of her flat as he sussed she was doing heroin, leading to her running off, hammering home the point that he couldn’t keep up because he’s reminded every two minutes that he’s an old man.
The first episode of The Trials of Jimmy Rose gave us nothing we haven’t seen before in a story about an ex-lag, and since there’s only three parts, you’d expect a lot more to entice you in part one to get you back for the other two. This difference between Ray Winstone’s character here and in most other films and TV shows, is that here, he has a moustache. It didn’t really feel like he’d been away a long time. He just looked a bit confused, more like he’d had his memory wiped or he’d travelled through time. Winstone has been far better before now, and Redman sleepwalked her way through what precious little script she had .
Alas, on the strength of this, I couldn’t get less if Ellie ends up overdosed to hell and back, nor whether Jimmy gets his end away with the missus. I would rather have seen more, than the one scene we were given, of REC 3: Genesis star Leticia Dolera, as Joe’s wife Maria. She was scrummy.
I sentence creator and co-writer Alan Whiting to twelve years in the slammer for coming up with a way to waste an hour of my Sunday evening.
The Trials of Jimmy Rose continues next Sunday on ITV at 9pm, and it is available to pre-order on DVD, ahead of its release on September 14th. If you missed it, you can watch the episode on ITV Player.
Overall Score: 4/10
Director: Adrian Shergold
Producer: Jane Dauncey
Creator: Alan Whiting
Writers: Alan Whiting and Dom Shaw
Cast:
Jimmy Rose: Ray Winstone
Jackie Rose: Amanda Redman
Roy Anderson: Paul Jesson
Julie Cooper: Charlotte Randle
Elliot Cooper: Jadon Carnelly Morris
Ellie Cooper: Montanna Thompson
Sue Anderson: Marion Bailey
Kerry Irwin: Pippa Bennett-Warner
Joe Rose: Tom Cullen
Maria Rose: Leticia Dolera
Graffiti boy: Louis Shergold
India Rose: Daisy Cooper-Kelly
Mehmet Guzman: Akin Gazi
Andy, DIY Manager: Cavan Clerkin
Steve McIntyre: John Lynch
Earl: Israel Oba
Aaron Stanley: Jack Colgrave Hirst
Dr Keagan: Wanda Opalinska
Bus driver: Martin Walsh
Earl, Pizza boss: Tyson Oba
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.