True Story mostly works as a pass-the-popcorn affair, where each apparent escape from the hangman's noose yields an unexpected twist that drags the comedian further into this nightmare, threatening the career he has struggled to build, and revealing how far he'll go to protect that.

With this project, Hart proves he's more than just a funnyman, but if he decides to try drama again, he'd do well to find something that takes story a bit more seriously.

Hart is a presence you want to stay with, while Snipes is so compelling you don’t really have a choice but to follow him. It just feels – a little, but inescapably – unnecessary. The points of connection between Hart and the Kid, which might have led to an examination of the power of fame and money to corrupt, are too minor to add any tension or wonderment (did he really …? Could he have possibly …?) amid such a baroquely exaggerated plot.

Hart, a committed but limited actor, tends to indicate Kid’s anger through screaming, replacing shades of meaning with decibels. ... Wesley Snipes very effectively imbues [Carlton] with a long-suffering mien and a sense of perpetual calculation.

Each episode ends with a tantalizing cliffhanger, and the momentum is hard to ignore even as the revelations and twists vacillate between the predictable and the highly contrived. But while True Story will be remembered as Hart’s first go at channeling the barely repressed rage in his stand-up comedy into a dramatic role, it won’t be remembered for much else.

On the whole, though, True Story is too familiar a tale to stand out for reasons other than the two actors trapped in the middle of it, creating three new problems with each old one that they solve.

However committed Hart is to Kid’s descent into self-inflicted misery, True Story comes to life only when Snipes is around.