blanche-2 Everyone on this board acts as if they were just assaulted with meat cleavers.Okay it's not Citizen Kane. I'd rather sit through this than some mindless film with car chases and explosions every five minutes.I think, right off, that this film was made for the wrong audience. It reminded me, in an odd way, of a time travel film called "From Time to Time" that starred Maggie Smith. It was an action and adventure film geared toward children - almost like a Hallmark film - but that adults would also enjoy. I think if this film had been made with that type of audience in mind, for television, it might have been better received.In this film, a woman, Sadie (Vera Day) who runs a London pub is murdered after she finds an unpublished book by Charles Dickens. One of her friends, Mike (Vinnie Jones), a former sports reporter, investigates. He wants to establish himself as an investigative reporter. A police press officer, Kate (Julie Cox), helps him. Also, he is aided by a homeless man.Following a riddle of Sadie's they find the manuscript. We then go between the time of Dickens and today. The book itself describes a murder, and Mike is interested in that, as he tries to solve what happened to Sadie.Mike has another project, looking into the death of a construction worker.This is a tad hard to follow, and the murder of Sadie is easily figured out. I still think the film had some good ideas and people in it, including Vanessa Redgrave, looking incredibly glamorous as Mike's old boss, and Derek Jacobi. Vera Day, who played Sadie, was a knockout, as you can probably tell, in the '50s, kind of a cross between Kim Novak and Janet Leigh.I found the beginning more enjoyable, and it moved a little faster. I didn't care for the ending.The acting was okay, and Vinnie Jones isn't the first sports figure to have a film career, if memory serves.

luhlin Okay, I'm getting older and my hearing is not as sharp as it was, but that aside, I found the lead actors diction, tone, accent and overall sound reproduction frustrating. I barely understood half of what Jones said when he was on screen. What dialogue I did get was too predictable, rather like the entire plot line and scenes. This film could have been reduced to less than 90 minutes (it might have been more tolerable).Was this supposed to have been a love story? The woman's lead was so out of touch with reality that she seemed to be rather accidental to the entire film. The ending was absurd and wholly unworthy of Derek Jocobi. Charles Dickens would have been so upset!

gradyharp THE RIDDLE was written and directed by Brendan Foley in what appears to be an attempt to pull the mysteries of the Charles Dickens' novels into a contemporary story, but that attempt is thwarted by electing to use the two periods of time format in which the 'riddle' is unraveled. Despite a cast of well-known actors, trying their best to pull off this direct to DVD movie, the end product is a long, tedious, amateurish mess that can only be considered as entertainment if viewers are fans of the cast as remembered from other films. Mike Sullivan (Vinnie Jones) is a journalist confined to reporting on dog racing events while he dreams of important reporting assignments. A series of similar murders happens to include an old friend of Mike's - Sadie (Vera Day) who runs a pub on the banks of the Thames, having just discovered an old valuable unpublished manuscript by Charles Dickens, and has a heart of gold, giving sandwiches away to such pathetic creatures as an old tramp beachcomber (Derek Jacobi). Sadie's murder attracts Mike to the role of detective journalism and with the help of policewoman Kate (Julie Cox) he begins to tie the investigation to clues he finds in reading the Dickens manuscript. Disrupting the flow of this rather simplistic story is the use of flashbacks to Dickens' time as Dickens (again Derek Jacobi) narrates a rather personal story of peculiar murders. The parallel between stories and the cross casting among actors may have worked in another's hands, but the finessing of this kind of venture escapes writer/director Brendan Foley. He draws his story to a close (at long last) with a tired Hollywoodesque ending. In addition to Jones, Jacobi, Cox, and Day, the film somehow attracted the attention of Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Flemyng, PH Moriarty and Mel Smith: their contributions are minimal but happily distracting. This is a flimsy bit of treacle leaving the viewer wondering how films of this quality ever find funding. Grady Harp

electriconion99 Ever notice how so many really bad films attract so many 10/10 votes? Not much of a Riddle how that happens, but this is not much of a film. There are two ways of looking at it being given away in the Mail On Sunday.1. It's free, so you can't complain about it to much. 2. It's free, so it can't be much good.My vote is number 2. The free DVD in the Sunday papers things is a recent trend and some great old movies have been given away. They're ones that have been out for ages and have made most of the money they'll ever make, so it's a case of anything else is a bonus. It's the last stop for old films, not the first for new ones, so you can guess how bad this must be to skip TV and DVD rental.The plus points are that Vinnie Jones does try hard and Derek Jacobi is good as Dickens. The minus points are a longer list. Trying isn't the same as succeeding for poor Vinnie and Jacobi's other tramp character is talkative ham that's gone off. The story is very weak. The Dickens story does not have anything to do with the film's murders and feels like another movie slapped onto the script to make people think it's a British Dan Brown without the religion. The supporting cast are either there for the money (Vanessa Redgrave must be really hard up) or because they are friends or girlfriends of the filmmakers. It is also very, very long for what it is.Vinnie taking his priceless Dickens story with him in his jacket pocket everywhere is good for a couple of laughs, but that's it. Not funny and very not good even for free.