Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Hunt For Raoul Moat’ On BritBox, A Fictionalization Of One Of The UK’s Biggest Manhunts

In 2010, a massive weeklong manhunt was undertaken to find Raoul Moat, who killed the new companion of his ex-girlfriend and, under the mistaken impression that he was a cop, threatened to kill cops as he ran. A new BritBox miniseries dramatizes that manhunt, as the local authorities tried to find him before police officers got injured or killed.

THE HUNT FOR RAOUL MOAT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Video footage of people leaving flowers where Raoul Moat was killed, one year later. “He’s a hero to us,” one woman tells a reporter.

The Gist: “One Year Earlier. June, 2010. Birtley, Gateshead.” Lying out getting some sun in the courtyard around her rowhome, Samantha Stobbart (Sally Messham), sees a young man passing out flyers. Chris Brown (Josef Davies) is a karate instructor, and Sam takes a liking to him and calls the number on the flyer. “Now you have my number,” she says. They go on a date, and they get on great. After her history, her mother is very happy she’s met some one nice — and stable.

Two weeks later, Raoul Moat (Matt Stokoe), Sam’s ex and the father of their daughter, calls her from Durham prison. He’s in on a four-month sentence for hitting one of his other children, and he wants to reconnect with Sam when he gets out. She ignores the calls, and eventually tells Chris about Raoul. He’s abused her and her daughter in the past, as well, but when Chris tells her that he’ll talk to Raoul, she tells Chris that’s it’s best if they just keep their relationship quiet and stay away from her dangerous ex.

Right before he gets out, Sam goes to visit him, not only to tell him that it’s over, but to stay away from her and her daughter. He doesn’t accept that at all, and when she says she’s seeing someone new, he presses her to tell him about Chris. She lies and tells Raoul that Chris is a cop, hoping to scare him off.

Upon his release, a guard reports to his superior that he witnessed Raoul be threatening to Sam during that visit, and that an alert should go out to local authorities that he may be after her. But that process gets delayed.

After Chris meets Sam’s mother for the first time, they are walking outside her home when Raoul confronts them with a sawed-off shotgun. He shoots Chris dead; after Sam runs, he shoots her through a window in her house, and she’s severely injured.

Detectives Neil Adamson (Lee Ingleby) and Nisha Roberts (Vineeta Rishi) investigate the case, and the hunt for Moat begins. One of the things they find out is that the report about Raoul’s threats against Sam didn’t reach the local cops in time, even though it was filed.

When Sam comes out of surgery, she admits to Roberts that she told Raoul that Chris was a cop; Adamson then also finds out from a friend Raoul visited — in order to steal his phone — that Raoul has made it his mission to go after cops as he’s on the run.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Hunt For Raoul Moat brings to mind other true-crime manhunt series, like the appropriately-titled series Manhunt that starred Martin Clunes. (It’s also worth noting that BritBox also carries Manhunt: The Raoul Moat Story, a documentary look at these same events.)

Our Take: The Hunt For Raoul Moat is based on the massive real-life 2010 manhunt of Moat; in fact, BritBox is also streaming a companion docuseries about the case. It was one of the largest manhunts in UK history, resulting in Moat’s suicide as law enforcement closed in on him.

The three-part dramatization of the story is pretty straightforward, showing Moat as a controlling sociopath who seems to want revenge on all cops because he thought that a cop stole his woman from him. Stokoe brings Moat’s menace to life in his performance, with his barely-repressed rage showing through in all of his movements and gestures.

If it weren’t for the true story behind this series, our impression is that it plays out like a typical British police procedural miniseries. We don’t know a ton about the detectives, Adamson and Roberts, beyond how dogged their determination to catch Moat is. What’s overhanging the action is Moat’s constant threat to kill any cop he comes across, and that foreboding is what will carry the series, even though we know the outcome of the story.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After Moat shoots into a random police car, he calls the detectives and says, “Are you taking me seriously now?”

Sleeper Star: Sally Messham makes Sam much stronger than you usually see in a fictionalized story such as this. She is able to confront Raoul, knowing what he’s capable of, to tell him to stay away. The mistake she makes is telling him Chris is a cop, but she has no idea what kind of anger that would unleash in his brain.

Most Pilot-y Line: Sonya Cassidy plays Diane Barnwell, a crime reporter for the local newspaper. Because of her beat, she is familiar with Moat, and she talks to Roberts at the scene. When she asks Roberts about the gun attack, Roberts says they’re rare in this area, “as any local crime reporter would know.” It’s a snarky retort that seems to be a specialty of British crime shows.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Hunt For Raoul Moat is a pretty by-the-numbers limited series about a real-life manhunt. However, the performances are compelling enough, and the runtime short enough, to keep viewers engaged.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.