District 9-1-1

Parkour is cool again in "District 13: Ultimatum," while the "Red Riding Trilogy" takes a darker approach to community watch.

Leito and Damien clean up a corrupt government through the sheer force of their athleticism; the simplicity of their solution would surely make them the envy of the heroes of “Red Riding Trilogy,” a series of interconnected crime thrillers set in Northern England.

“Red Riding,” based on the novels by David Peace, shares “District 13″‘s jaundiced view of the European justice system, but not its belief in easy fixes or in the idea that one or two idealistic individuals can overcome systemic rot. It depicts Yorkshire of the 1970s and 1980s as a swamp of moral decay. There’s no chance of running or leaping away from your problems here. Once you enter the swamp, you can’t help but get bogged down. And pretty soon, you start to smell just as bad as everyone else.

Each of the three films tells its own story with its own protagonist, its own director, and its own visual style; only screenwriter Tony Grisoni, the setting, some supporting players and unsolved murders, and the overwhelming sense of despair connect the trio. In “1974,” directed by Julian Jarrold, an ambitious young reporter named Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) covers a series of child abductions for his newspaper. In “1980,” from “Man on Wire” director James Marsh, police investigator Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine) is assigned to figure out why the local police department has been unable to capture the so-called Yorkshire Ripper (an actual true crime figure of the period).

In “1983,” by Anand Tucker, down-on-his luck lawyer John Piggott (Mark Addy) and guilt-ridden detective Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey) have to deal with the repercussions of those child abductions from nearly ten years earlier. You don’t need to see all the films to appreciate any single one of them, though the series does premiere this week in a special “Roadshow Edition” and on VOD. But a marathon viewing really shows off the consistency of the films’ vision about broken law enforcement institutions and their endless cycles of corruption and death.

Those who’ve seized control of Yorkshire have a saying they like to recite during their clandestine meetings: “This is the North! We do what we want!” “The Red Riding Trilogy” was clearly made in a manner true to that ethos. These films aren’t tailored to mainstream tastes, and some of the qualities that make them so effective are the same qualities that may turn some moviegoers off. As a whole, it’s an incredibly bleak work with little in the way of comic relief or happy endings, and befitting a saga about the sluggish nature of justice, it’s not exactly paced for an impatient audience.

But the size of “Red Riding”‘s canvas enables Grisoni and the filmmakers to paint as effective a portrait as you’ll see of a world where justice isn’t served, where some crimes never get solved, and the pain they cause just goes on and on and on. The mood of despair “Red Riding” creates is so powerful and so complete that the small glimmer of hope provided at the end of the third film almost seems inappropriate, despite the fact that it still leaves many unanswered questions, and plenty of problems still left to be solved. Maybe Damien and Leito have the right idea: sometimes you have to destroy the whole swamp and start over from scratch.

“District 13: Ultimatum” is currently available on demand and will open in limited release on February 5th. “The Red Riding Trilogy” opens in New York on February 5th, will open in Los Angeles on February 12th before expanding into limited release on February 19th.

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