Whether in Manhattan or Montana, both places seem to be fictional baloney. Pfeiffer, Russell and the cast do their best, but it’s a challenge to act believable in such an entirely rigged reality.
The creator Thomas Brandon (“Legacies”) and his writers’ penchant for time shifts — two hours ago, eleven months before, yesterday — can make the complicated plot hard to follow and lead to binging vertigo. And yet, it satisfies our spy TV jones, and Liu passes the test as a dynamic leading man.
Sure, there’s a corpse at the contemporary thriller’s center, and a killer, and a kooky cop. But the fun is in watching Biel and Banks stretch out and strut in complicated roles with ample opportunity to demonstrate their acting chops.
There are some awkward bends in this “Long Bright River,” but with its strong sense of place, sequences of ride-along policing and twisted sisters storyline, it’s a must for lovers of female-driven dysfunctional family crime dramas.
It doesn’t break new ground. It’s akin to “Dragnet” — nothing but the facts — or the original “Hawaii Five-0” or “Adam-12.” The real weakness is the characters’ softness and lack of complexity.
The costumes, production design, score, and tableau are equal to the razzle dazzle of “Peaky Blinders.” While there isn’t the galvanizing gangster family saga fueled by charismatic Cillian Murphy’s kingpin Tommy Shelby that propelled Knight’s series to top 100 status on the IMDB TV charts, “A Thousand Blows” lands its punch, making for killer television.
The script is smart, if not exactly sharp. There’s occasional humor. .... Of the large cast, Jeffrey Wright stands out. .... He [Michael Fassbender] fails to ignite the necessary chemistry with Sami, despite obligatory explicit sex scenes.
Measured, meaty, modern, “The Day of the Jackal” is a suave espionage thriller that benefits from the luxury to run for 10 hours without padding. It’s dynamic enough to capture the audience, and hold them hostage, until the final shot.
A fully-committed Crystal vibes with Rosie Perez as Noah’s guardian, Denise. However, laden with a buffet of red-herrings, “Before” stalls in the second half. The series requires an epic leap of faith to give credence to the supernatural elements, but the uneven pacing, detours, and repetitions over 10 episodes (eight would have been better) challenges skeptical viewers to suspend disbelief.
