Riley is a fine actor but here embodies brooding paranoia and cruelty on such a single note, he's as much EastEnders villain as anything.

Having to follow in the footsteps of Attenborough is an albatross around Sam Riley's neck.

Drab in color, with very little of Brighton-they shot in neighboring Eastbourne, apparently because Brighton is too posh now to be its old self.

Few would say Joffe's take is the definite version of Greene's classic, but perhaps that fact suggests that somewhere between the two lays an adaption that's getting close to being so.