This has probably aired in Europe already - taking a break from Harry Potter... By ANITA GATES Published: October 30, 2006 NYTimes “Cracker” is back, in the form of a gripping new two-hour movie. And its hero, the British forensic psychologist Eddie Fitzgerald (the amazing Robbie Coltrane), is completely in character. Fitz, as everyone calls him, cannot even get through his daughter’s wedding reception without making a scene. A little bit drunk as usual, Fitz makes a toast that insults both his daughter and her new husband. More to the point, he snarls an accusation at a baffled guest: Wouldn’t you have liked the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks better if they had happened in reverse, he says, just for the sake of escalating drama? First the plane falls out of the sky in Pennsylvania, then the Pentagon is hit, and then the World Trade Center. Some British critics have accused “Cracker: A New Terror,” which has its United States premiere tonight on BBC America, of preachiness, heavy-handedness or both. One review suggested that since everyone in London sits around at dinner parties expressing anti-Americanism all the time, there was no good reason to repeat all those sentiments in a murder mystery. That sort of thing plays a little differently here. First, there is a sense of relief that characters on television are talking about the events openly and irreverently. Then there is the punch of confirmation that much of the rest of the world may indeed despise the United States for what the Bush administration calls the war on terror. And for local viewers, there is a hint of vindication when the mother of the movie’s first victim tells a Manchester police officer: “My son wasn’t American. Not in that way. He was a New Yorker.” That victim is a stand-up comedian who has the nerve to get laughs with a Gerry Adams joke, suggesting that Mr. Adams’s Irish Republican Army branch, Sinn Fein, is pretty pale terrorism compared with Osama bin Laden’s efforts. Unfortunately for the comic, his audience includes Kenny Archer (Anthony Flanagan), a former British soldier traumatized by the deaths of his colleagues in Northern Ireland. Kenny is a husband and father and has a particularly respectable job, the revelation of which is the plot’s biggest shock. He wants to kill himself but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger and so kills others instead. The combination of his homicide spree and the police force’s investigation of the murders makes intense drama. Mr. Coltrane’s Fitz is at the center of the investigation of course, narrowing down the suspect list at one point to roughly 100 men in Manchester who wear uniforms and have short brown hair. The last episode of “Cracker,” created by Jimmy McGovern (who wrote this film too), was made 10 years ago, so Fitz is older and wearier. He and his long-suffering wife (Barbara Flynn) have been living in Australia and are back in Britain for the wedding. Fitz continues to abuse his body with cigarettes, alcohol and food, and the years have taken their toll. One memorable juxtaposition has the murderer getting into bed with his wife, high on the success of his crime, and Fitz getting into bed with his wife, only to get up soon after, go to his computer and look up Viagra. Longtime “Cracker” fans may feel a bit like Fitz’s wife, comparing this latest encounter unfavorably with the show’s early days. But also like his wife, they may be forgiving because their love for the character is true and enduring. Compared with most television crime investigators, Fitz is still the king.