ALL IN THE MIND (THE TOURIST)

It's been one hell of a year already for Jamie Dornan.

He's earned some of the best reviews of his career in Kenneth Branagh's awards hopeful 'Belfast'.

At the same time, he's become a 007 contender thanks to his BBC, Stan and ZDF co-production 'The Tourist'.

Given BBC1's prized New Year Sunday watershed drama slot, Jack and Harry Williams' six part miniseries is the kind of thriller most actors would give their left arm to headline.

Dornan grabs his moment in the Australian sun from the off, beginning the miniseries with a 'Duel' style car chase involving a freight lorry.

It culminates with his character thinking he has given the lorry the slip, only for it to reappear and plough right into him.

He survives the car crash, waking up in a hospital bed in Cooper Springs with no idea of who he is and no memories of his life before the accident.

As he recuperates, he is visited by Danielle MacDonald's inexperienced but sweet natured Constable Helen Chambers who takes pity on the Northern Irish amnesiac.

Frustrated that he hasn't a baldy who he is, there is at least one potential clue - a handwritten note with details of a rendezvous in a diner.

Against all advice he discharges himself so he can make the meeting, with Helen giving him money for a bus fare and her number because she is now his only friend in the world.

Making the diner in time, he comes across Shalom Brune-Franklin's Luci Miller who is fascinated by the fact that he has no memory.

They sit at a table but there are no clues as to why he is expected to be there.

Leaving the diner with Luci because the toilets are out of order, both are stunned while crossing the road when a bomb explodes at the table where they were sitting.

Back at the hospital, Olafur Dari Olafsson's Stetson wearing Billy Nixon turns up to enquire about the Northern Irishman's whereabouts.

He doesn't give a name for their John Doe but Helen is alerted by staff who are suspicious about Nixon.

Damon Herriman's highly respected Detective Inspector Lachlan Rogers is also brought in to investigate the explosion in the Outback town and sets off to investigate with Dornan's character being treated as a person of interest.

Luci drops Dornan's character off in a a rooming house run by Genevieve Lemon's Sue and Danny Adcock's Ralph.

Helen, meanwhile, is informed by a colleague while rehearsing for her wedding to Greg Larson's overbearing Ethan Krum that the car Dornan's character was driving had a mobile phone inside.

Tracking the Northern Irishman down to the rooming house, she phones him and arranges for photos found on his mobile to be emailed to him in the hope it will jog his memory.

This sets him off on a trek to a site known as the Nala Stone Man with Sue and Ralph, where he visits the gift shop and asks if his can see their security camera footage.

Ralph lip reads the footage to reveal he visited the Saddlepack Roadhouse where he got petrol before his car crash.

A book he had to sign to get a key for the loo reveals little because he wrote "Crocodile Dundee".

However visiting the toilet, he spots a toy koala bear concealed behind a dumpster.

Reaching for it, he finds a phone concealed inside the toy and receives a call from a Greek man, Damien Strouthas' Marko who is buried underground and is desperate to get out.

Linking up again with Luci, they head for Karramundi to rescue Marko.

But will they get there in time?

With Billy also on their tail, can they avoid falling into their hands?

How can they also Detective Inspector Rogers and Kamil Ellis' Sergeant Rodney Lammon who are also tracing their steps following the explosion in the diner?

Why is Luci so eager to help Dornan's character?

Is there something unsavoury about his past?

And who exactly are Alex Dimitriades' Kosta and Alex Andreas' Dimitri and why are they so anxious to track down the Northern Irishman?

The Williams brothers have built up a reputation in recent years for creating twisty TV thrillers - particularly with Northern Irish leads such as 'The Missing' with James Nesbitt and 'Rellik' with Richard Dormer.

'The Tourist' is very much in that mould, with Jamie Dornan relishing his star billing in a quirky tale that aspires to be the Australian Outback equivalent of 'Fargo'.

For the most part, it works thanks to Dornan, rising star Shalom Brune-Franklin who some viewers may remember as DC Chloe Bishop from 'Line of Duty', Danielle MacDonald, Damon Herriman, Olafur Dari Olafsson and Kamil Ellis.

Dornan, Brune-Franklin and MacDonald make engaging leads as his character tries to piece together the mystery about his past.

Olafsson brings the right air of menace to the proceedings, while Herriman poses a different kind of threat as the dogged, tough as old boots DI.

Greg Larson makes a decent fist of an unenviable part as Helen's irritating, bullying fiance.

Directors Chris Sweeney and Daniel Nettheim also do a reasonably good job keeping the story rolling along, with the help of their cinematographers Geoffrey Hall and Ben Wheeler, film editors Emma Oxley, Charlene Short and Mark Keady and a smart soundtrack that includes Kim Carnes' 80s classic 'Bette Davis Eyes,' Gordon Lightfoot's 'If You Could Read My Mind,' Sophie Ellis Bextor's 'Murder on the Dance Floor' and The Ink Spots' 'If I Didn't Care'.

Much of Williams' miniseries is a bit of a thrill ride packed with quirky 'Fargo' style characters who riff on the stereotype of laid-back rural Australians.

It also revels in its lashings of stylised violence.

Occasionally, though, it loses its way.

This particularly happens in the penultimate episode where Dornan's character experiences an LSD trip that takes the drama rather unconvincingly into cod David Lynch territory in an attempt to fill in the blanks about who he is.

Dimitriades' Kosta also doesn't quite have the darkly comic impact that the Williams brothers hope and he descends into the territory of ham acting.

As a result, he is overshadowed by Olafsson's more intriguing villain.

And by the time we reach the conclusion which keeps the door open to another series, the writers can't resist throwing another sting in their twisty tale.

This denies their audience a comfortable, neat ending.

As New Year dramas go, 'The Tourist' fits the bill as a fun and quirky distraction from the post Christmas gloom.

It cements Dornan's status as a lead man and Brune-Franklin as a rising star.

'The Tourist' may well propel MacDonald on to greater things and it makes a great case for more small and big screen outings for Olafsson.

UItimately, it is a gimmicky thriller that aspires to be an Aussie version of a Coen Brothers dark comedy, with elements of David Lynch thrown in for good measure.

However it doesn't quite measure up to the Coens or Lynch's best work.

Sometimes gimmicks are not enough.

('The Tourist' was broadcast on BBC1 in the UK from January 1-30, 2022 and is available on the Stan streaming service in Australia)

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