The Big Cigar

The Big Cigar works on multiple levels. It’s a retro action thriller. It’s a fictional representation of American history and the biography of a countercultural giant. It’s a showcase for Nivola, Boone, and especially Holland, who balances Huey’s intelligence, courage, and post-traumatic paranoia. There’s humor in the culture clash between revolutionaries and Hollywood types.

The Big Cigar is thoroughly entertaining, but rather than fully honoring this under-told piece of history, it feels like things have been manipulated into the form of a digestible six-episode miniseries.

There are intriguing snippets in all these various timelines, but the shuttling back and forth deprives The Big Cigar from the nimble cadence it requires to keep up with Holland’s narration, Newton’s story, and the vibrant ’70s aesthetic directors like Don Cheadle bring to the series.

Ultimately, this “mostly true” story would have been a better fit for a film, a la BlacKkKlansman, but Holland is strong as the revolutionary political activist grappling with memories, addictions and trauma.

When digging into the inner-workings of Newton’s mind and exploring the in-fighting and rival ambitions that ultimately undermined the Black Panthers, we are taken to the heart of a key period of recent history. So much so that Newton’s flight to Cuba and Schneider’s part in it feel like an unwelcome guest at the party.

The series isn’t dumb; if anything, it has too much on its mind. But in attempting to tell so many stories about so many people, and with its ceaseless rocketing around in time, it loses focus and force. .... But Holland shifts gears smoothly through these twists and turns. .... He makes him someone you want to learn more about, the best thing an actor playing a real person can do.

The Big Cigar ends up being two different unsatisfying shows squished together into six episodes of under 42 minutes apiece — occasionally stylish and boasting a very good lead performance by André Holland, but frustratingly mediocre overall.