For television that makes you feel so constantly anxious and stressed that even an episode of Squid Game would calm the nerves, BBC1’s thriller Crossfire does the job.
This ‘Die Hard in a hotel’ mini-series stars Keeley Hawes (who else?) on the holiday from hell in the Canary Islands. Keeley plays Jo, who has gone away with her annoying husband Jason ( Lee Ingleby ), two other couples and their troupe of children.
I don’t mind tension, but as terrorists storm their luxury resort and start shooting at families indiscriminately for three entire hours, this nightmarish viewing is too relentless to be remotely enjoyable.
Adults and children run terrified and screaming as gunshots ring out across the sunny swimming pool. Survivors in swimming trunks cower in various corners, rooms and under tables, while two men in balaclavas stalk the corridors menacingly. A little boy sits shaking in a bath, a woman bleeds half to death in a barricaded kitchen… it’s all too much.
The lead characters are also caught up in a ridiculous saga as we discover through flashbacks that Jo has been having an affair with Chinar (Vikash Bhai), her friend’s husband in the tight-knit group.
Mid-terror attack, Jason discovers sexts on Jo’s phone and has a minor temper tantrum. Never mind the fact a killer is on the loose and his children might be dead.
The problem with this domestic storyline is that no one cares. How can you concern yourself with Dr Foster-style flirting when everyone’s about to die?
If that isn’t grating enough, a future-voiceover throughout from Jo about life and taking things for granted made me want to hurl my telly out of the window. But back to the hotel – a real one in Tenerife – and Jo reveals she used to be a cop. Must be her Line of Duty days.
She then gets to be Bruce Willis, while other characters do incredibly stupid things, like endlessly calling the mobiles of people trying to hide in silence and losing their kids while on the run because they decide to stop and help a lady step over a rock instead.
In other plot problems, the terrorists turn out to be two brothers with a sketchy back story about being sacked from the hotel, and the police inexplicably take hours to arrive.
Plus, the whole thing is so clearly based on the real-life Tunisia hotel attack in 2015 which left 38 dead that it all feels a bit distasteful. An excellent cast is wasted on this cliched ‘who’s going to die next?’ saga. A total misfire.
