Critic Reviews

When these murders took place in real life, they shook the world with horror and disbelief. Those feelings are reignited with the deliciously morbid quality of The Menendez Murders, literally like a slow motion retroactive murder you can't take your eyes off.

What results is an oddly watchable combination of “Law & Order” and “American Crime Story.” The Menendez Murders borrows so heavily from both, its only identity comes from a new true crime story (that younger viewers may not know the ending to) and Lesli Linka Glatter’s tense, observant direction.

Falco and her curls steal the show. They’re both are fascinating. The “true crime” part is much less so.

The series was created by Rene Balcer, whose writing staff does a very good job with the script to make it feel real, so much so that it may seem almost perfunctory. But that’s the point, really, and underscores the naturalism of the series. The performances are very solid overall. ... Falco, of course, is a standout.

The story, like it did in early 1990s, grabs your attention. The actors are the reason it keeps it.

Despite the me-too-ism of it all, the result is a slick, impressively cast trip down memory lane, saddled with the unwieldy title Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders.

The scripts, mostly written by L&O veteran Rene Balcer, do a nifty job of carving a clean narrative trail through the usual true-crime cloud of ephemera.

There were reasons, other than the character of the Menendez brothers themselves, for the enduring notoriety of this case, and we’re introduced to one of the major ones early in the series (just two episodes of which NBC released for review). She’s Leslie Abramson (Edie Falco), attorney for Erik Menendez.

Rene Balcer's writing and Lesli Linka Glatter's direction keep things moving, and if these two episodes don't promise anything terribly deep, they're packed with enough good performances and details (an alibi conversation revolving around a supposed meeting at the Beverly Hills Cheesecake Factory, for instance) to make us curious about what comes next.

The Menendez story is not as immediately consuming as the celebrated O.J. series, perhaps because there was no dramatic car chase or fallen-celebrity scenario to kick off the story. But with a solid cast and Falco in the lead, The Menendez Murders has the potential to dominate in an otherwise crowded field of true-crime dramas.