Review of Detective Montalbano

I'd read several of the Montalbano books before watching their TV versions, and I have so far found these disappointing on several levels. Luca Zingaretti looks and behaves nothing like the Commissario I'd imagined from the novels: he's too young, and too much of a hard man. The gentle humour in the books comes over as brusque and at times cruel. Much of the acting appears rather stilted and hammy, and for my liking there are too many dialogue-free scenes devoted to establishing locations, with characters walking along streets, cars accelerating, camera sweeps across scenery etc., and a lot of it feels like filler to pad out the duration of the programme. The episodes I've watched might usefully be edited down by 20% or more. That said, the adaptations have been true to the original stories, and those are compelling - often with quite complex plots which we see the Inspector gradually puzzle out. The Sicilian atmosphere is there too, in the buildings and some of the minor characters. Shame that the standard of the film versions falls short of the written word.