camarill I enjoyed that TV-movie. The story was no blockbuster/Bond style (though I like that too) but concerned an interesting moment of History. The acting was good (David Tennant of course!) and the characters plausible. It was also a pleasure to watch again Burn Gorman. Most of them when speaking French had an acceptable accent. Another reviewer complained about costumes, but as said in "La Rumba", if they were dressing our (French) soldiers that bad, it was so they would have less regret dying... I don't know Warsaw so I can't judge on the location views; and I'm not a specialist of History and then don't know if there were any goofs. Yet I noted at least two mistakes: (here be small spoilers) when Mercier is phoning from Paris, the phone booth is in rue Moulin, XXIth arrondissement! Must be the Tardis in disguise, and way in the future, as to now, there's never been more than twenty arrondissements... And when the Rozen leave, the plane wears a French flag but RAF cockades (red inside, blue outside).

Reno Rangan BBC's television mini series about spy drama of pre world war II tension. Seen lots of lots of world war movies, but this one commence before the beginning of the war where spies from different region of Europe collide each other. So it is a cat-mouse game with many dangerous path ahead. It was a beautifully shot movie with sufficient art structure to construct curiosity in both the episodes. Definitely not like James Bond movie with lots of strong action sequences. I don't know about this book so I can't remark any differences between two. It had all the ingredients like romance, friends, betrayal, family and threats that a man as a spy who can go through in reality.It was based on the book which set in October 1937 in the capital of Poland, Warsaw. A French spy Jean Francois Mercier is assigned to look the situation on the German border. As his first report confirms something big is getting ready by the Hitler, which creates diplomatic tension between the neighboring countries especially Poland. So he hires some people to do inside jobs and that put many in danger. So constantly the locations change when characters start to explore in the cities between Warsaw, Paris and Berlin. Between all this he meets a young French woman and instantly fall in love with her. When the country near to be at war, what are their plans and how it can be executed is the rest which unfolds in an exceptional manner.It is a television series and does justice for what it has to be so if you are expecting like a Hollywood movie you will be let down. David Tennant was Amazing, one of his best performances I have seen. It was a bit slow in pace, but if you give a day gap between two episodes, it won't affect you much with the speed. You must remember it was not like todays spy movies where there is lots of equipment available to get in touch with the main office. But then it was left to that one man and he must take all the tough decision himself in the tight situations. So in my opinion, this mini series about serious issue was way better than the commercial movie which deal with the same subject. I believe it is a fine adaptation so you may try if you are interested.

phd_travel This is a miscast cheaply made boring WWII spy movie/TV series. The scenes are so limited - the same courtyard street or forest. Hardly show any parts of recognizable Warsaw at all.David Tennant is hardly a dashing spy - he looks like an owl with his blank staring eyes.Janet Montgomery is quite pretty but she can't make up for this dud.The supporting cast looks like the least photogenic of all BBC British actors and actresses. The accents are inconsistent - the French sound like British. The Germans speak in German with subtitles even though the Polish characters are speaking in English. Why bother? There just isn't enough story - and the screenplay is boring. The editing spends long periods on uneventful scenes and dialog. A dull book and a dull series.Don't waste your time.This dud should never have been made.

Mouth Box Spies of Warsaw (BBC Four) was probably meant for BBC1, but then someone at the BBC sat down and watched it.As we know, it's not currently very fashionable for BBC executives to take an interest in BBC programmes, but on this occasion it's just as well one of them looked at it before making the mistake of showing it to a larger audience.Adapted by the usually brilliant Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais from a novel by Alan Furst, the first episode was actually only about ninety minutes long. It felt, however, like it was on the air for about 12 weeks.Even in the first ten minutes one could have timed the action by calendar. Sorry, did I use the word, "action"? Slip of the pen. At one point, near the end of the episode, I found myself asking the question, "Is this still on?" It's difficult to say what happened, the plot being revealed at such a painfully leisurely pace. The gist of it appeared to be that David Tennant – a French spy in bright red pantaloons with stripes down the side – fell very slowly in love with Janet Montgomery, the mistress of a dull, whiskered Russian exile.Then we were very slowly introduced to a mysterious Countess, who very slowly turned out not to be a Countess, and was then very slowly strangled by some Nazis. Oh, there was a brasserie with a bullet-hole in the mirror above table 14. I think this might have been significant in some way. Or maybe it wasn't.There was certainly great attention to period detail, which helped to slow down the action even more. Then there was the usual confusion when it came to who should speak with which accent. The Nazis spoke in German with subtitles in English. The Polish spoke English with Polish accents. The French spoke English with 'Allo 'Allo accents. Everyone spoke very, very, slowly indeed.Tennant was wasted as the enigmatic, complex and conflicted Mercier. He doesn't really do enigmatic and complex, does he? He does quirky and eccentric. About twenty minutes in, he had a stab at being deep and conflicted, but all we really wanted was to see him whip out his sonic screwdriver and pull one of his funny faces.Did I mention that it was quite slow? I still have episode two of Spies of Warsaw on my TIVO. I think it's going to be there for a very, very long time.Read regular TV reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk