Hightown

This is an interesting series if you have a mind for historical cities and their decline or at least the challenges they are likely to face. A coastal town stuck or thrust into a modern age and battling the effects of modernization and change. 

It is not likely to be your cup of tea of you are not drawn to the seedy side of life…but who is? These are the realities of life that the creator seeks to explore though. He observes and takes you through the lives of in my view two major characters on the good side and others on the not so good side. You have a lady plagued by a love for the bottle working with the fisheries law enforcement that is trying to get into a mainstream role with the police and a man with a passion for the law but a strong tendency to bend it too when it suits him as well as a weakness for skirts. 

On the whole if you look at these two people you could argue that it is a story about addiction and recovery and to a greater extend struggle and love. 

Then you have another set of antiheroes who have embraced a whole new set of opportunities. They are as often expressed in these shows slit along racial lines. A Hispanic/Dominican Amaury Nolasco who made his name and crafted his art in Prison Break this time taking on the role of a kingpin in the drug trade with a ‘club’ which supplies visual pleasures to men. Then you have an African American rising through the ranks partnering with a young girl who has ambitions of her own. The introduction to the young African American is short and you have no idea what she will become as the show progresses. 

The struggles depicted on addiction are real and the project keeps you glued to the screen hoping for the best for these two people. 

The rest of the show is really a game of chess and chance and a contest of will and minds as good guys and bad guys battle it out for fame and fortune and in some cases truth. 

There are some absolutely amazing scenes where true love is expressed for some at their extreme lowest and those are great to watch. There are also liberating takes on truth and what it means to free oneself from lies and how in some cases this can open one up to more fulfilling relationships. 

Night Manager

This is a decent tale. Really strange to see one of my favorite Doctors playing the villain. Hugh Laurie though does a great job as no other would although he is rather low key…dangerous yes but low key. He comes off as a humanitarian but he does have a lot up his sleeves. Then there is the Night Manager. As professional as only a Brit could be just doing his job in a Five Star Hotel. As these things tend to go, he falls in love and his interest spirals into disaster when his Femme turns out to be married to a cruel jerk. Our manager as they often do just happens to have spent some time in the British Army so he plays hero. 

These escapades a repeated throughout the show and at times it feels rather ‘James Bondy’. But the writers do weave together a pleasant story of dedication on the part of the agents that are bent on getting this arms dealer and the agent who must infiltrate the organization to gather the evidence they need. 

A small team of devoted government officials must then wrestle with an entrenched few whose stake in the game has them accepting kick backs as innocent victims falls prey to arms traders. 

The back and forth between trusted friends (Tom Holland plays Corcoran a devoted friend who seems to see through Jonathan or Andrew’s Ruse. He also has seen the interest Jonathan show to Richard’s wife and warns him to back off) and the deception as well as the tense moments make quite a show and even though I was not expecting such a brief experience it delivered and told the story in about 6 episodes. Jonathan is coming in as a replacement and this is all that Richard’s side kick sees him as. While the crew is used to being arrogant and getting their way in all sorts of situations, Jonathan’s finesse is set to ruin the party and tensions from this point on are high. 

The villains and his arrogance at the end with that strange twist of fate of the stuff of legends. 

The devotion that these two women show to their savior/lover is noteworthy both unwilling to give him up to the point of extreme pain. 

Given this is part of John La Carre’s (the great Spy Master writer) work, you tend to feel that these attempts can be ruined especially when extended in series format. The Day Of the Jackal is an example. You almost just want to see the film in brief not have to see the show drugged on in series format. 

Season 2 Fargo

This second season is created with just as much mastery as the first. Starting  off with the same cryptic message and star studded cast. 

This time the story is a little different though. The cop is a lot smarter and tougher. A breath of fresh air from what we had in season 1. To replace the bad guys, we have a family with its fangs in the heart of its community financing and financed by crime. The director uses tight camera shots to encode a feeling of desperation and fear. I hate (ok like) the scene with the patriarch as he struggles with his health as the DOP zooms in to his face creating quite a frightful experience. 

Kieran Culkin brother to McCauly Culkin plays one of the younger brother is in crime family (Gerharts) delivering a masterful though brief performance that forms the heart of season 1. The family dynamics which constituted Succession also makes its way into this season with interesting back and forth between the potential heirs. 

I have had of people often describe the setting as a character within itself and this is the sense you get when you see the long abandoned roads and the winter cold. 

Then there is the dreamy wife (Kirstie Dunts of Spider-Man fame) who does have a job as a hairdresser whose boss though single has made it her goal to recruit her into her cult of feminism and emancipation. She is clearly troubled and wants out of this rural town. Something you see mirrored in season 1 with Nygaard’s Asian American (Linda Park) colleague who later confesses her love and infatuation for him. The wife of the butcher wants out while her devoted husband is digging in trying to get a hold of his dream to own the only butchery in the small town. 

Fargo makes good use of the unfortunate set of events which often causes people of all sorts to face each other. 

As was in the first season, we see the resume of enforcers from a rival group coming into the city to upset the Apple cart. Whereas in the first season one of the killers was deaf, this time around there is a pair of brothers who wear similar clothes but who say nothing throughout the season. 

The writer has an insane ability to make audiences laugh at the most unfortunate situations like the scene where a couple visits a doctor about a life threatening illness. 

This season feels like a tribute to men and the troubles they go through in defense of those they love. Perhaps a useful summary quote or story of the show is the conversation between butcher’s wife and sherif where he makes mention of the man who wakes up every day to push a boulder up a hill only for it roll right back. Instead of realizing this unavoidable problem he wakes up the next day to do the very same thing. 

Season 1 Fargo

This show starts off with a cryptic note telling the audience of the idea that what they are about to experience (not just watch) is based on real life and true.  This for most means that the tale will be told as is and will be as exciting as watching pain dry on a wall. 

Ah but Fargo season one is a lot more than that. The protagonist is a short and unassuming man trying to do his job as an insurance agent at a small firm in rural America. He has a part ridden with all sorts of sad but funny stories which place him as the underdog in almost all his school years. A local bully still rides him just as hard and to add insult to injury this same bully’s sons have inherited the same disrespect which they shovel out to him in massive amounts. As if this is not enough, he has a sarcastic wife who has made it her mission to berate him and ridicule him on every single act in his home. Martin Freeman delivers on this role with such as sense of innocence and bewilderment all captured in his magical facial expressions. 

During one of his challenging experiences with his childhood foe, a stranger passes through town whose role will be pivotal in the transformation of Lester Nygaard. 

After a series of unexpected events, Lester is thrown into the middle of an investigation in a town that has not seen any crime in a long time. At the helm is the newly promoted Captain (Bob Odenkirk later on to star in Better Call Saul) whose blind trust in the Lester is so annoying. His understudy in the meantime is a lady (Played by Allison Tolman) who will not take no for an answer. She must plow though the evidence at the chagrin of her boss who does everything in her power to steer him away from this case. Everything she turns her hand to seems to yield more and more results with her keen detective eye. 

In this town too there is a single dad whose fears for his daughter are plaguing his judgement after a chance meeting with a visibly cruel man. 

As though this is not enough the aforementioned crime has drawn in a duo of ill intentioned men who will stop at nothing to solve this crime. 

Lester has to deal with the attention he gets from the nosy detective as well as emerge from the shadow of his more popular brother. 

The whole show is really about transformation. The growth of Lester from victim, the attempt by the frightened single father to deal with his fears. The changes that Lester’s sole guardian (naive protector of his high school image) must go through as life’s realities hit his town. 

If there is anything that the show does effectively is make the audience cheer for villains out of understanding as well as appreciate the skill displayed by clearly evil men. What is clear at the end is that justice desk in the end prevail. 

Liaison and Black Doves

Part of the struggle that we face in the present day is the proliferation of information and the ability to extract data from that information. It affects us in many ways, but in a sense a little more for those who are in the entertainment business. The ability to draw your usage and viewer stats from a show means that you can now predict the success of a sequel or another season based on the viewership of the first installment. This seems to be the case with Liaison (Apple TV) and Black Doves (Netflix). Both a British shows and some argue that those who are behind them are trying to capitalize on the massive attention that has come from Slow Horses. This show now in its third season is very difficult to replicate but you cannot blame these others for trying. 

The spy genre is quickly becoming one of my favorite and these shows both fall under that category. They both have borrowed heavily from each other (making use of love interests one from a previous younger life and the other from an out of marriage romance). Black Doves is a little more cheeky and possibly enjoyable with quirky characters that are funny as well as brutal. It is a rarity to see female assassins although this show makes full use of them. I love the performance of Kathryn Hunter who plays the character of Lenny. A leader in the underworld who meets her clients in a busy restaurant and is charge of maintaining order in a chaotic violence filled city. She looks frighteningly similar to the late Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 

Liaison on the other hand was quite frighteningly accurate or shall I say timely in  terms of how relevant its material was to the present day. I stumbled accross it and downloaded it on the same day that rebels made inroads in Syria and this country did feature a lot in this series. It is really a game between Syria, the US, the UK and France and their attempt to get their hands on a very skilled Syrian Hacker who is seeking to sell his information. 

All this takes place in the midst of some controversial arms deals between the British and the French (at least a French owned Arms Trading Company) high is bent on sealing this deal with or without the approval of its government. 

All this takes place in the midst of what Die Hard Called a Fire Sale a multi pronged Cyber Attack that focuses on Infrastructure by taking advantage of the dependence on the Internet. The conversation about these types of attacks sprung from an article called Farewell to Arms by John Carlin which was written in the late nineties. In Liaison the cyber security center is attacked first, then the rail system followed by a flood control system on the Thames after which the terrorists take control of a plane. 

Domina, Spartacus and Those About To Die

There is a rising interest in films that portray life in Ancient Rome. There are several ideas that these shows normally focus on. Everyone’s favorite is the life of gladiators. Slaves whose fate was decided in the stadium doomed to engage in battles with beats and fellow brutes in order to earn their right to freedom. We have had some commentary from thinkers who have likened the obsession with entertainment and sports in the modern day to the lives of Romans who were often distracted from the challenges of everyday activities through sports. But apart from the layer that deals with life as a slave, there is another layer about the warrior class, and the ruling classes. 

This is the story at the heart of Spartacus. My only criticism is the choice of colors that makes the certain parts of the series almost sleepy and unreal. 

But the story telling is really good. The greater percentage of shows that have depicted Roman life do not shy away from steamy scenes of pleasure and Spartacus is no exception. 

There are a few layers that are worth exploring though. The first is the strict nature of classes and lineage that dominated the time and that was responsible for everything that happened and how wealth and power were transferred. 

One of the leading characters is a man (played by John Hannah) who has for generations been in charge of a group of gladiators (ludus). He has ambition though and so does his wife Lucretia (played by Lucy Lawless). They have a friend who is a general in the army called Glaber whose wife ilythiya (played by Viva Bianca) have some affection for the ludus owning couple. 

Viva’s character is a confident well bred and cultured Roman who knows her place and how to put those who who are beneath her in theirs. As fate would have it these two families collide on the whole out of the lower status’ couple’s desire to rise up in ranks using the more connected military family. All this takes place in a background of love, hate and seething anger between different personalities in the ludus each seeking to rise and take the place of champion amongst the gladiators. The gladiators are foreseen by an older fighter faithful to his master and with keen eye for those with skill. Spartacus in the meantime (name comes later) has to work through his own issues and rivalries including a hatred from ilythiya and Glaber for breaking an agreement made with him while on the battlefield years prior. 

You have the same dynamics at play in Domina although here the protagonist is seen making moves to the top through careful planning and intrigue with strategic marriages and breakups. She seems to retain her position though despite these calculated moves. In Domina (Livia Drusilla) she is the daughter of a general who was in support of the Republic and who must flee with her conniving and opportunistic husband from rival generals who wish to purge the empire of Julius Ceaser’s supporters. In the first season there is a conversation long before things go sideways where Domina meets two young ladies (one of whom was Scribonia) and tells them how she is richer and more beautiful that them. This rivalry will go on to dominate the encounters between this trio culminating in a nasty divorce and consequent marriage to Octavian which seals Livia Drusilla’s position in power. 

You need to watch the story of ilythiya’s revenge mid series when the revolt takes place after the trap that was set by Lucretia fails or is undone by events. It represents one of the best comebacks that I have seen in any series. 

Those about to die also manages to tap into similar subject matter by focusing on the underbelly of Roman life through the eyes of an up and comer who sues his contacts to set himself up as an influencer in the gambling dens of the day and his knowledge of the dark streets to forge a place for himself in high society. As this happens another layer of the show explores succession and sibling rivalry as a politician and a general seek to replace their father. 

Rebel Ridge

I am quite a fan of the Jack Reacher Series first done in the movies with Tom Cruise. I expressed some of my concerns with the new reacher primarily because of the fact that a smaller character tends to draw much more interest especially attracting those who underestimate him. Read more about my review here https://intersectionawards.blogspot.com/2023/12/reacher-series.html

This one is dfferent though. And it is not really a series but my comparison comes from the fact that Aaron Pierre is really like the black version of Allan Ritchson. Both are unusually large and with military backgrounds and both definately kick ass. My favorite part about this movie is the escalation that takes place from the first scene and the protagonist’s attempt to deescalate the situation. But more that than the creator and writer insert a scene that is usually the standard in these types of film. While you are certain that the hero has some sort of military background, in this case while trying to explore and learn more about what they are up against the team at the station cannot seem to get their internet line running as such we are drawn into a suspensful back and forth as viewers wondering about the source of this man’s confidence. We know ofcourse after watching many different versions of these types of movies that he or she is often no joke, but it is fun to be out of the loop with the station chief and his staff. 

There is less humor in this piece but a lot to learn about the possibilities that exist in a corrupt system and how quickly a lack funding can propel even those with good intentions into a downward spiral of violence. 

Another interesting perspective in this film is the price that peole otften pay when they tell the truth to people they hope will change things and the extremes to which those in power will go through to maintain the ststus quo. 

A thumbs up from me!