Episode 239
Robert De Niro for President?
Ian and Hannah review the biggest new films and bingeable shows on UK streaming services for the week beginning Friday 21st February 2025, including:
Robert De Niro is a former U.S. President called out of retirement to find the source of a deadly cyberattack, only to discover a vast web of lies and conspiracies in Netflix original series Zero Day.
Two best friends from Jamaica fight for survival in the violent melting pot of Victorian London's East End. Stephen Graham and Malachi Kirby star in Disney Plus' A Thousand Blows
Alan Ritchson reprises his role in season three of Prime Video's popular action series Reacher.
A journalist recounts her fight to break free from infamous New Zealand Christian cult Gloriavale in BBC documentary Escaping Utopia.
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Transcript
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Speaker:Welcome to Binge Watch the podcast where we take a look at the hottest new TV and film
Speaker:releases on streaming television platforms. I'm Hannah Fernando, the group editor of Woman
Speaker:and Woman at Home magazine. And I'm Ian McEwan. And today we're looking at the new releases
Speaker:that will be available on Friday, the 21st of February 2025, including Stephen Knight's new
Speaker:period boxing drama, A Thousand Blows on Disney Plus and Robert De Niro. Netflix thriller Zero
Speaker:Day.
Speaker:And we'll also be checking out documentary series Escaping Utopia on iPlayer and the return of
Speaker:muscle-bound crime fighter Reacher on Prime Video. Well it's a strong week this week. We've
Speaker:got two impressive new drama series, a returning favourite drama series and a recommended documentary
Speaker:series as well. So we're going to start on Netflix with a new thriller. which arrived on Thursday
Speaker:the 20th of February. It's called Zero Day. And here's a clip. 3,402 people died.
Speaker:on zero day. Absolute nationwide terror. Computer systems completely hijacked. A significant
Speaker:number of casualties. Every phone in America displayed the same haunting message. This will
Speaker:happen again. Six episodes of this one and the headline news is, well, it stars Robert De
Speaker:Niro in his TV debut. Incredible. He's heading up a pretty stellar cast. That includes Joan
Speaker:Allen, Lizzie Kaplan, Dan Stevens, also Jesse Plemons, and De Niro stars as George Mullen,
Speaker:who is a former US president. And the title Zero Day, it comes from this cyber attack,
Speaker:which we see in episode one, which takes down lots and lots of computer systems so that the
Speaker:planes are falling out of the skies. Trains are crashing, traffic lights are failing. So
Speaker:there's a lot of fatalities and confusion and disaster. And no one knows who's caused it,
Speaker:but as part of the attack, this message comes up on everyone's phone saying, this will happen
Speaker:again. We see the former president visiting one of the sites where a lot of people have
Speaker:died and the bystanders, giving the emergency services a lot of grief. And he kind of steps
Speaker:in and makes this very rousing speech, George Mellon, saying, you know, we need to all stick
Speaker:together, you know, we need to protect our values against this threat. This is the time, you
Speaker:know, for us not to be attacking each other, but to be supporting each other. Some of films
Speaker:there, of course it goes viral. And before you know it, the current president, Angela Bassett,
Speaker:who's done lots of great things, including playing Tina Turner in the biopic What's Love Got to
Speaker:Do With It? Well, she invites him for a meeting and asks him to oversee a task force or a commission
Speaker:that will investigate what's happened and will have sweeping powers. But the question is,
Speaker:well, why has she selected him? Is it a poison chalice? He's getting advice from various people,
Speaker:including Plemmons as his rather ambitious advisor, from his family. Is it a good idea for him
Speaker:to take this on? That's the big question, and that's what he's weighing up by the end of
Speaker:episode one. So there's a great moment in the first episode where De Niro's character is
Speaker:just watching the news unfolding of this crisis, and so the camera is just face-on to De Niro,
Speaker:who's staring into it. And it's absolutely gripping because he's still got this amazing presence
Speaker:and charisma. And he's great in this. It's a proper grown up thriller, political thriller.
Speaker:I really enjoyed episode one and I will be watching the rest. What do you think, Hannah? Yeah,
Speaker:it is good. I mean, you've got to watch it with De Niro in there, haven't you? Although I was
Speaker:reading the interview in one of your TV titles. where they asked him why he was interested
Speaker:in doing something like this. And he said, I was talking to my agent about doing something
Speaker:in New York so I could stay at home. And I asked him if he could find something, maybe a limited
Speaker:series that would film over five or six months. And he introduced me to this. So he started
Speaker:sending me episodes and every few weeks and that was it. I was in. And I just think it
Speaker:was like brilliant. That's kind of like, yeah, that suits me. That's fun. Of course, it is
Speaker:absolutely great. I mean, the premise of this is kind of. a little bit close to home at the
Speaker:moment in some ways, isn't it? I think this kind of idea of absolute power and being able
Speaker:to do whatever you want with it and him coming back in and having to make really difficult
Speaker:decisions when he's in retirement, but absolutely required in this situation. It is different
Speaker:actually, which I think is nice to see because each week we come and talk about different
Speaker:series or docu-series. that this feels like it offers something a little bit different
Speaker:and a huge talent of course in De Niro. We move across to Disney Plus for our second new drama
Speaker:series, which arrived on Friday the 21st of February. It's called A Thousand Blows. And
Speaker:here's a clip. London, the lion's den. I'm no reviewer raised here. All you just got here,
Speaker:you learned a fire.
Speaker:Yes, so this is a new Disney Plus drama and it's, I think they're throwing quite a bit
Speaker:of cash at this I reckon. It's called A Thousand Blows and it takes you right back to the very
Speaker:brutal world of bare knuckle boxing in Victorian London. Now, I'm not a huge fan of boxing anyway,
Speaker:you know, when you buy it and you kind of... like you have to watch it because everyone
Speaker:stayed up to watch it, I will, but it just feels incredibly brutal and barbaric to a bystander
Speaker:like myself. However, this takes it to another level. Bare knuckle boxing is just, as you
Speaker:can imagine, pretty grim and it's exactly that in this. If you're a bit phobic of blood, it's
Speaker:not for you. This is headed up by Stephen Graham, who you will remember from Peablinder's. And
Speaker:it's kind of, I suppose it's something that he wanted to be involved in. His wife suggested
Speaker:that Peablinder's, the creator of Peablinder, Steven Knight, would want to be involved in
Speaker:it. And she sort of suggested that would be a good thing. He went and did it. And of course,
Speaker:yep, there they were. And now they've got the script and now it's happening and now we're
Speaker:watching it. And it's- You can see that there's a sort of a wealth of skill set, I suppose,
Speaker:of something like this, because you'd have to do a fair amount of going back and checking
Speaker:how things were and ensuring that everything was kind of accurate. But running through this
Speaker:is another storyline. So it's not just that kind of brutal, bare-knuckle boxing that's
Speaker:going on. It's also the women involved, you know, as well, and the kind of the relationships
Speaker:that are going on. behind everything because of course this is making money and you need
Speaker:to be the best at all times and you can't falter, the cash doesn't come in. As I say, there's
Speaker:lots of relationships going on in the background and it feels, it's a really solid, I think,
Speaker:narrative throughout it. There isn't any sort of any way you think, oh, that storyline's
Speaker:a bit rubbish or that shouldn't really happen. It feels really well thought out. I don't know
Speaker:what you think Ian, but I mean, for me, it's not something that I would necessarily turn
Speaker:to watch because of the content, but actually it's pretty captivating once you start. Well,
Speaker:by coincidence, this very morning I was watching a screener of an upcoming Netflix crime drama
Speaker:called Adolescence, which is co-written by and stars, Stephen Graham, and he co-wrote that
Speaker:with Jack Thorne. the award-winning writer. Well this has been written by Stephen Knight
Speaker:who's a rather prolific writer isn't he? Probably best known for Peaky Blinders so you'd think
Speaker:well if anyone's a good pick to do a Victorian boxing drama he's your man and he does a great
Speaker:job with this but he's also done Taboo. He did that very good series. about the Scar Band
Speaker:called This Town, SAS Rogue Heroes, which I've been binging my way through recently. So yeah,
Speaker:he's done loads of stuff for TV and for film. And yeah, he really shows his class with this
Speaker:because although it's about bare knuckle fighting, and I'm no fan of watching people getting pummelled
Speaker:on screen, there's a lot going on. There are lots of really interesting storylines that
Speaker:interconnect and strong characters, and you care about all of them. and it kicks off, it's
Speaker:set in the 1880s, and these two lads arrive from Jamaica. Haseekia, played by Malachi Kirby,
Speaker:and Alec, played by Francis Lovehall, come to London to sort of make their fortune, and Haseekia
Speaker:in particular wants to be a lion tamer, but they've got no money, it's quite a racist society,
Speaker:so they can't get any lodgings, and that's how they sort of fall into this world of bare-knuckle
Speaker:boxing. You've got Danny Mays with very good facial hair, who's sort of like the MC introducing
Speaker:the bouts. And Stephen Graham plays this boxer who is the king of the ring really, Sugar Goodson.
Speaker:Erin Doherty who appears with Graham in adolescence. Well she is really good in this. She plays
Speaker:this woman called Mary Carr who genuinely did exist who was... the head of a gang of female
Speaker:pickpockets, but she has plans to do something a little bit more ambitious. So yeah, I mean
Speaker:he's packed plenty into Episode 1. It's fascinating. It moves quickly, the sets look great, and
Speaker:it's just got a terrific cast, and it's very well written. So, yes, another winner from
Speaker:Mr. Stephen Knight. Over on Prime Video. arriving on Thursday the 20th of February. We have the
Speaker:return of the drama series, Reacher. And here's a clip. Mr. Reacher, we're looking into the
Speaker:owner of a rug import business called Bazaar Bazaar. Let me guess, DEA thinks we've seen
Speaker:business with bad people. You know him? I thought I killed him years ago. What did he do to you?
Speaker:He didn't do anything to me. maybe we can help each other out. This is season three or series
Speaker:three, as we say in the UK. Eight episodes, three will drop initially and then it's weekly.
Speaker:Reacher, as he likes to be known, or Jack Reacher to give him his full name. Well, he's been
Speaker:played on the big screen by Tom Cruise, which is quite surprising because Jack Reacher is
Speaker:supposed to be a great big hulking guy. He's a former military police officer. and a bit
Speaker:of a drifter really, just wandering from town to town. In this incarnation he's played by
Speaker:Alan Richson who I did meet to talk to when series one aired and he is a big lad. Anyway,
Speaker:for those who are as old as me it's got a bit of that sort of Incredible Hulk type vibe in
Speaker:that it's about a drifter arriving in a new place. getting involved with some new characters
Speaker:and probably some crime, some bad guys, overcoming adversity and then moving on. Although there
Speaker:is a sort of story arc across this whole season. So in this one, it kicks off, yeah, Reacher
Speaker:blows into town and he witnesses an attempted abduction and of course being a man of action,
Speaker:steps in and foils it. Turns out it's the sum of a wealthy businessman. who is the target
Speaker:for the abduction. And I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but Richard gets involved
Speaker:with the boy's father, Zachary Beck, who is supposedly a carpenter in Porto, who's very
Speaker:rich, played by Anthony Michael Hall, who of course was a teenage star in films such as
Speaker:National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase, Weird Science, and the Breakfast Club. Yeah.
Speaker:So I didn't recognize him but there he is. He's very good. And also, Reacher is going to come
Speaker:up against a formidable foe, a bearded bodyguard, okay, who is played by, he's called Paulie,
Speaker:and he's played by a Dutch bodybuilder called Olivier Richters who is, he is huge. I mean
Speaker:he literally normally gets cast as a giant. So yeah, it's interesting to see Reacher being
Speaker:dwarfed by this absolutely incredible Hulk. Anyway, so I liken Reacher a bit to just watching
Speaker:the beginning of Rambo First Blood over and over again because he tends to arrive in town
Speaker:and he often comes up against law enforcement or baddies. And he didn't say much, but there
Speaker:comes a reckoning because of his training. So yeah, I really like Reacher. He's a creation
Speaker:of Lee Child, the pen name of Jim Grant. And the books are massively popular. And these
Speaker:days, Jim co-writes them with his brother, Andrew. So yeah, I mean, if you like Reacher, the films,
Speaker:or if you've watched the previous series of this, you're going to enjoy it. It absolutely
Speaker:delivers. I think it's great. What do you think, Hannah? There's a lot of fighting this week,
Speaker:isn't there, Ian? A lot of fighting, but that's the theme. Yeah, do you know what? There's
Speaker:a reason it's continuing, isn't it? It's so incredibly popular. And I don't know, everyone
Speaker:that's in this kind of absolutely believes in it. I think it feels really authentic because
Speaker:of that. And the fighting, I think, reading again, one of your interviews. It doesn't,
Speaker:it's not always, you know, quite often catch each other mistakenly in the face as well.
Speaker:So it's not just, it's not just planned fighting, which is good because I think they put, they
Speaker:put everything into it, which is why it's so effective. I mean, I don't know that it's,
Speaker:I love, I particularly love it because of that. I'm not, I don't kind of like that kind of
Speaker:physicality, but I can see why it's so, why people like it so much. And, and this series
Speaker:doesn't disappoint. We're going to finish on BBC iPlayer with a new three-part documentary
Speaker:series that arrived on Sunday the 16th of February. It's called Escaping Utopia and here's a clip.
Speaker:In Glowival it's protected. We are the chosen ones. We are the people of God. We were told
Speaker:this is what we're protecting you from. We've taken you out of this evil wicked world.
Speaker:cross this bridge and you've lost your soul. And that's the psychological prison. Yeah.
Speaker:So this really gets, well, it certainly got the hairs on the back of my neck are standing
Speaker:up because it was just, it's just very, very creepy because these kinds of things exist.
Speaker:And this is essentially a documentary, which it- It looks into escaping and interviewing
Speaker:people who've already broken free from a compound called Gloria Vale. And it was set up, in fact,
Speaker:one of the people interviewed, his father is the guy that set it up and their whole methodology.
Speaker:is based on religion. Of course, this is not the first of its kind and won't be the last.
Speaker:The idea is that the men are the superior sex and the women are there to service men and
Speaker:to have children. If they don't, they are going to be going against the Lord and hell hath
Speaker:no fury and they will end up there. And it's sort of, you know, there's one interview with
Speaker:one of these guys who just says, this is, I think he was in his thirties, I'm trying to
Speaker:remember his name. He's interviewed and he wants to leave. He now, him and his wife were both
Speaker:born in there. They've known nothing else. And this is what interests me about this because
Speaker:I'm kind of going everywhere because it's just, it's so interesting. But these two people.
Speaker:have never known anything else, and yet he's questioning it. And the reason, and it's kind
Speaker:of weird, because you think you'd be so consumed by that, that you wouldn't know any different,
Speaker:but they have three children expecting their fourth, because part of this cult is, if I
Speaker:can call it that, is the idea that you keep having children, that is exponential in terms
Speaker:of growth and reproduction. So. They've got three children, one on the way, and they're
Speaker:questioning the safety of their own children because he says that he was abused when he
Speaker:was a child and he doesn't want that to happen to his children. But it's not a case of just
Speaker:being able to up and even it splits couples because one of you will go like, I'm ready
Speaker:to go and just walk away. A, it's not that easy, but B, the other person doesn't want to because
Speaker:they don't want that eternal damnation from the Lord and going to hell. And so... It's
Speaker:just the music, the way this has all been put together, there's so, so much. It's hard to
Speaker:kind of, for them to pull it all into, into the time that they've got to do this. But it's
Speaker:one, as I say, one of many, it won't be, it's not the first, and it certainly won't be the
Speaker:last. But there are, there is footage of some of these kind of assemblies, I suppose, where
Speaker:they talk, where women are just there to service. the men under the guise that they're, you know,
Speaker:very peaceful creatures and kind creatures and they look after us and the narrative is really
Speaker:quite frightening that this could happen. So you can't show as a woman, you can't show anything.
Speaker:You can't show your hair. You have to wear something that covers your hair. You're told if you're
Speaker:showing your ankles or I think it's your elbows, I say at one point you are leading a man on,
Speaker:you mustn't do that. It's really unbelievable to think this sort of thing exists, but it
Speaker:absolutely does. And as I say, I think it's really been done quite well in terms of the
Speaker:sort of maybe that I was thinking at one point, are they over egging this with the music and
Speaker:the sort of creepy, but actually they're not because it is just feels very, very creepy.
Speaker:What do you think, Ian? Yes, I'm always really interested in these documentaries about cults
Speaker:or strange communities. I wasn't familiar with this one. Gloria Vale in a remote part of New
Speaker:Zealand, which was founded by this guy called Neville Cooper. But it's a depressingly familiar
Speaker:story in that, at the head of these secretive organizations, there's usually some pervy guy
Speaker:who basically wants to prey on people sexually. And so it proves to be in Gloria Vale, because
Speaker:we hear... There's lots of disturbing things that we hear, but among them are the fact that...
Speaker:He would kind of give these sex demonstrations where he would encourage lots of couples to
Speaker:make love all together in one room. He encouraged kids to get naked with their parents. It's
Speaker:all very creepy. And yeah, as you say, the women weren't allowed to expose any flesh because
Speaker:obviously men cannot control their urges. And they were cut off from the outside world. In
Speaker:fact, At one point in episode one they talk about the fact that the women used to light
Speaker:the fires using newspapers, but when they discovered that they were reading the newspapers they
Speaker:would censor them and cut out any stories that they thought might be threatening to the community
Speaker:and to these poor brainwashed people's view of their lives. And interestingly it's a son
Speaker:of Neville Cooper who left the community and has now dedicated himself to... helping people
Speaker:to leave. So, as I say, depressingly familiar tale, but a very interesting one. Yeah. I found
Speaker:it a gripping watch. Now we've got to that time Hannah, where we find out what the heck you've
Speaker:been binge watching this week. Well, we talked about it last week. I continued to watch it
Speaker:this week and that is Catherine Ryan. and watching her therapy. And you're so right, Ian, when
Speaker:you say, like she takes him to therapy and it turns out everything's wrong with her and not
Speaker:him actually. And this is the episode where daughter Violet bought, I mean, she's 15, right?
Speaker:She bought a cat and brought it home, even though mom said no. And they don't really know what
Speaker:to do about that. On Netflix, I've been watching a very good period western called American
Speaker:Primeval, which is about this woman trying to locate her husband on the wild frontier and
Speaker:running the gauntlet of Mormon militia and Native American Indians, and just people who are out
Speaker:for whatever they can get. It's a pretty unforgiving time and place. And it's slightly got the vibe
Speaker:of the film, The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. And yeah, I would highly recommend
Speaker:that. Well worth a look. I mean, it is quite violent and shocking, but it's very well done.
Speaker:Now we've just got time to look ahead to next week's offerings. So what's on the agenda,
Speaker:Brenda? Well, my friend, Kate Hudson takes over a basketball team in the Netflix comedy, Running
Speaker:Point. And one of my favorites, Mr. Dave Gorman. Well, he is back on You with a new series of
Speaker:his standup show. modern life is goodish. So we look forward to those and much, much more.
Speaker:But in the meantime, listeners. ["Watching You Go"]
