I'm not sure "missing years"sequels are ever a good idea... because if those years were so interesting why were they not in the original? Magwith is a great enigmatic character but if you lose the enigma by making him front and centre is he as interesting? They put in Pip at the start but we never get why Pip means so much. In the novel it's because he reminds Magwith of his dead daughter, isn't it? We don't see that - the film starts with Magwitch's trial.
In fairness maybe that was in the mini series version. The version I saw was a 100 minute cut down version. It feels like a TV movie - the run of the mill photography. Music.
The incident of Magwitch becoming a hang man is taken from a real life case that was dramatised in Rex Rienits 1960s ABC mini series. Ron Haddrick was in one of those and he turns up in this, giving it a nice synergy.
I enjoyed the little arc of Sigrid Thornton falling for Robert Coleby and turning into a drunken trashback in the space of a few minutes. Bruce Spencer and Noel Ferrier feel like good Dickens types. I'm not sure John Stanton was up to his role - someone like Ray Barrett would've got more light and shade. But really this felt like something the Brits should've made. The actors would've been more at home.
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