Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

The lure of 'Luther'

Idris Elba said no to Hollywood, yes to the third - and darkest, and last - season of his tortured-cop drama on BBC.

Elba insists that Hollywood A-list status isn't his priority, but he was a scene-stealer in "Thor" and "Prometheus" and is set to star in a Nelson Mandela bio.
Elba insists that Hollywood A-list status isn't his priority, but he was a scene-stealer in "Thor" and "Prometheus" and is set to star in a Nelson Mandela bio.Read moreROBERT VIGLASKY

Fans have said it, and hoped for it for years, but this, this finally may be Idris Elba's year in the sun.

The 40-year-old Londoner returns this week as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the third and darkest installment of writer Neil Cross' anguish-saturated police procedural Luther.

BBC America's four-part mini-series premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. and continues on consecutive nights through Friday.

Brilliantly written, with stunning performances, this will be Luther's final year on TV. But take heart, a Luther film is in the works. It'll be a prequel, charting Luther's earlier years as a cop.

Luther is only one high point in a rich two-year stretch that has given Elba his most audience exposure to date.

He stole his scenes in 2011's Thor and in Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, Prometheus, which had him out-charm, out-charisma, outwit - and eventually seduce - Charlize Theron. He has two more blockbusters under his belt, this summer's Pacific Rim and the superhero sequel Thor: The Dark World due next month.

In November, audiences will see him in his most challenging role yet, as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a major biopic based on the former South African president's memoir.

There's even a rumor - a two-year-old whisper that persists despite repeated denials - that Elba may take over as James Bond once Daniel Craig hangs up 007's cummerbund. ("It's a very kind rumor," Elba demurs.)

Stardom beckons. And though Elba admits he'd like the creative control it might give him, he insists that Hollywood A-list status is the last thing on his mind.

"I think what's more important is the kind of work I've been getting," the actor said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. "I turned down a couple of films that would take me towards Hollywood, to do Luther. I chose the characters I could sink my teeth into."

Luther, which last year earned Elba a Golden Globe win and an Emmy nomination, has all the elements of the workaday tortured-cop drama: A haunted, self-destructive cop eaten up by the horror around him; an understanding partner; and a femme fatale.

Yet the thriller has a certain surreal twist, an Alice in Wonderland logic that transmutes it from a story about crime to a nightmarish topography of a haunted soul. Luther's relationships come off as more perverse than the grisly, shocking murders served up in the show.

This season, Warren Brown returns as Luther's young partner Justin Ripley. Yet their artisan-apprentice relationship takes a dark, deadly turn when Justin is recruited by internal affairs to document Luther's many breaches of protocol. (The detective is not averse to dangling a suspect by his feet off a high-rise balcony.)

If Ripley is the good angel on Luther's shoulder, his pal, genius physicist Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) is most definitely the little devil. A femme fatale in the most literal sense, she blithely killed her parents in the first season, let Luther catch her, but deprived him of actual actionable evidence. He had to let her go.

So they became friends. Alice, who had a small walk-on part in Season Two, returns to lend Luther a hand to capture a psychopath. (Being one, she has rare insight.)

"Alice and Luther, I think, share . . . an intellect that they both thrive on," Elba said. "For us, it just became a tantalizing way to explore a relationship that's nonsexual but has a sexual undertone to it. And it's, you know, it's dangerous."

Luther, whose wife was viciously murdered at the end of Season One, even finds love. Mary Day (Sienna Guillory) is a true innocent, Elba said, a good woman. For Luther she represents the furthest shore.

"She's the furthest thing away from a murder scene," Elba said. "I think Luther is so attracted to that - it's kind of like a grizzly bear being fascinated by a goldfish."

Elba said the series exhausts itself by the final episode. It reaches the character's terminus.

"Having [Luther] investigated was the ultimate, sort of, autopsy on him," said the actor.

"At the end when we say the last words, we wanted the audience to . . . look at Luther and go, 'I don't know where you can go from here, pal.' "

Real 'Cold Justice'

Law & Order creator Dick Wolf has adapted his brand of crime drama for reality TV with two previous shows, Arrest & Trial and Crime & Punishment.

TNT's Cold Justice may lack Wolf's trademark ampersand, but it also may be his best outing in the genre.

Described as the Rizzoli & Isles of reality TV, the eight-episode series teams former Texas prosecutor Kelly Siegler (68 murder trial wins and no losses) with Yolanda McClary, a 26-year veteran of the Las Vegas Police Department who has 16 years of experience as a crime scene investigator.

The duo travel around the country to tackle cold murder cases at the invitation of local police. In a nice twist, the cases all are in small towns.

"When I was working [in Houston], I'd get calls about cold cases from officers in surrounding towns," Siegler said in a phone chat. "I figured if these cops could have a little more help, resources, and expertise, they could clear their cases."

Siegler and McClary are attractive and photogenic, yet never ham it up on camera or glamorize their jobs. They're eminently professional. In each episode, they clearly and methodically take viewers through the investigation.

It makes for refreshing, illuminating TV.

Television

Luther: The Third Installment

Four-part series: 10 p.m. Tuesday, 9 p.m. Wednesday, 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday on BBC America. Information: www.bbcamerica.com/luther

Cold Justice

Premieres 10 p.m. Tuesday on TNT. Information: www.tntdrama.com/series/cold-justice

EndText