Idris Elba has been in the discussion as a contender to play James Bond for quite some time now. It seems at some point though that someone here has decided to stop waiting and show that Elba has in fact already been doing his own version of the role for the last thirteen years. If you don’t see this and are not immediately convinced that 007 and Luther are comparable characters, well then Luther: The Fallen Sun is demonstrably their attempt to show you otherwise.

I’m not going to unpack all the ways in which this is done as there are spoilers here but what we have in this film is a British super sleuth doggedly chasing down a larger than life villain across UK and international locations and with little concern for the rules placed on him by the law enforcement agency he is supposed to be working with. Still though there are those at HQ who are loyal to him and are willing to give him what he needs in the field despite some professional risk to themselves. He also has his trademark threads and vehicle, albeit a wool overcoat and a Volvo in this case rather than a dinner jacket and an Aston Martin. His main ally in this film is also a woman which is common for Bond. Perhaps more notable than all of this though is the lingering shot of the man standing on a rooftop looking out over London which, while it is not the first time Luther has done this, does appear to be a very deliberate nod to the same iconic image in Skyfall. It is no throwaway moment either; they have made it the film’s poster.

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As I say though, they are not suggesting that any of this is all a big new direction for Elba’s unconventional copper; the assertion is that this has been the game all along. Still though it feels like a bigger version of the Luther we know. It is true at least to say that it follows on nicely from the latter episodes. The show did get a teeny bit more far fetched toward the end and this first movie is not reigning it back in any.

It does have all of the elements that it always had on TV though. This is still an ongoing story that is built around believable police work and villains that are sophisticated but not infallible. It is also more than a little discomforting in how twisted the crimes and the perpetrators get, which again is something that fans of the show will have had to deal with before. Crucially though, returning writer and creator Neil Cross still has an excellent grasp of his audience. He knows exactly what viewers will accept and what they will not and he walks that line perfectly. Similarly he understands what those watching will go along with in terms of the players’ motivations, decisions and actions. There is no inclination here to shout at the screen in frustration when people go off in certain directions as there so often is in inferior thrillers and police procedurals. The writing here is drum tight.

Considering Cross has predominantly worked in TV, this is also very well structured as a movie. It certainly doesn’t feel like something stretched from being an hour long or like two episodes strung together and if the plan from here is to take this character forward in a series of feature films (like a certain spy we know) then based on The Fallen Sun, it’s going to work really well. There are also the bigger set pieces that you’d expect from this format, including one particularly gripping and well orchestrated sequence in Piccadilly Circus that is among the most audaciously staged action/drama scenes I’ve seen in any film.

Clearly Idris Elba has always been key to Luther as well and his established nature as a kind but brutal antihero is still what holds everything together. There is one other person in the cast who has made the journey from the small screen to the big one (and then back again – this was briefly in cinemas but now it’s on Netflix) but all of those involved in the narrative feel in keeping with the larger story.

If you’ve not seen Luther before you are good to begin here. In fact for all I’ve said this works better as a fresh start as for many of the established fans there is going to be some expectation that is better jettisoned. This is not because Luther: The Fallen Sun doesn’t compare to the TV show, but rather because it is different. Luther is up there with heroes of cinema now, one in particular, and it is somewhere, as suggested, he may have been heading all along. Either way, based on this it is where he now belongs. I hope Idris Elba doesn’t pick up any other big franchise roles of any sort any time soon, mooted or otherwise, because he simply needs to keep playing this one.

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The Ripley Factor:

Way back in its first episode Luther gave us one of the greatest ever femme fatales, who actually rewrote the very notions of such a thing creating a tour de force of female genre characterisation with a strong feminist energy. Sadly Ruth Wilson’s Alice is not the other returning cast member here but the show has consistently given us a decent roster of women and this continues here. The list of players is not gender balanced but Cynthia Erivo is the new DCI and she is a well measured foil for the leading man. There is one facet of her character that might play into gender tropes in relation to what turns out to be her Achilles Heel but actually we have probably moved away from this being something that only tends to apply to women in action movies now. In fact her exploitable weakness is one that very recently and with great significance was recently found to be shared with Bond himself, which kind of neatly brings us full circle.