City on a Hill

Partly concocted from leftover bits of the previous Boston crime movies made by executive producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (particularly Affleck's 2010 production The Town), and partly from screenwriter Chuck MacLean's fictionalized account of the political cleanup known locally as the Boston Miracle, City on a Hill could reasonably be mistaken for a Bean Town version of The Wire.

If the interpersonal storylines occasionally dip into soapiness, by the end of the six episodes screened (out of eight), the show feels like it’s moving towards a central thesis, bringing Ward and Rohr back together to investigate Dryden. We’ll see how these narratives play out, and if “City on a Hill” can stick its landing. But, if the previous seasons are any indication, “City on a Hill” will be just fine.

There are no complaints about the performances in this piece, particularly from the principals and Amanda Clayton, who lends a grimy steel to the role of Frankie’s beautician wife Cathy. Even so, it isn’t as if the kind of story in this “City” hasn’t been told elsewhere and many, many, many times on television and in other places such as New York, Chicago and, hint hint, Baltimore.

None of it feels particularly fresh, but most of it’s well-executed, and the talent in front of and behind the camera is promising enough to earn patience. It seems like the sort of show you’ll like if you like this sort of show.

The show is inessential, but potential abounds. [14/21 Jun 2019, p.101]

The actual heisting is kept to a minimum, but there’s still a thrill in the inexorability that haunts Frankie and Jimmy’s scenes.

In its first three episodes, City on a Hill doesn’t quite manage to sketch out the broad institutional framework that underpins a show like The Wire, and it also fails to make any of its primary characters especially endearing in a way that buys the show time for the rest of its mechanisms to click into place.

Wow, where did this come from? I had never heard of it, but thought I'd give it a whirl. I mean, Kevin Bacon, right? What a pleasant surprise. Loving it so far. Bacon is excellent, and Aldus Hodge is also killing it. Kind of like The Town meets The Wire, and that is a good thing. I'm in half way to the first season now, but it's definitely been binge-worthy.