House of Cards ( US version)

I have been a bit late on Netflix, indeed if they did not inform me that after I cancelled a credit card they had difficulty in taking my sub, I would not even had known it was feature of my tv package. I have seen most of their scanty international films and enjoyed Marseilles. So recalling the UK series created from the book by Michael Dobbs, now Lord Dobbs, I thought I would watch the US version starring Kevin Spacey, who is also executive producer.

I can see there is a formula  to Netflix productions. You get a big actor in a lead role then add to the cocktail the ingredients of sex, power, realistic location shooting and a pacy  plot. Against this the acting standard is pretty crude particularly in the younger cast who are wooden. The plot suffers from credibility. Could senior politician really murder someone quite so easily? So much intrigue surriunds a young death of a prominent figure. I found I could only take the heady mix in small doses, one episode every two days.  Kevin Spacey is a superb actor and like many of the best Hollywood stars (Edward G Robinson, Bogart, Cagney) he learned his craft in the theatre. Spacey was artistic director at the Old Vic for nearly 10 years and the theatre is his first love. As we know from JR Ewing, audiences love an evil character and Spacey is extremely good as the manipulative conniving South Carolina politician and Chief Whip ably supported by his glacial ambitious wife (Robin Wright) who is an activist environmentalist and ruthless head of a charity. Less convincing is Kate Mara as tenacious amoral  reporter Zoe Barnes though it is interesting that her career ascends when she moves from a conventional newspaper to the internet media operation Slugline. The drama won acting Emmys for Spacey and Wight.

As a footnote it’s interesting to see how the media landscape has changed since Murdoch Empire’s last effort to acquire the 61% of SKY they do not own. Netflix and Amazon are now such big players that the Murdoch executives, chiefly his son James, might succeed in avoiding a reference to the Monopolies Commission. Conversely one of the reasons for the gradual decline of the Murdoch empire is that they have been too slow to react to the potential of the Internet media market.