Butler's Cinema Scene

Vincent ‘Onofrio

“DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN”(Disney+)

As was the case with the DC-based “Penguin” of a couple of years back, the latest incarnation of Marvel’s Daredevil character is noteworthy for its high degree of psychological sophistication.

Both miniseries unfold in worlds that seem far more nuanced and believable than your usual comic book fantasy.

Curiously, both get their oomph not from a traditional superhero (the character of Batman never even appeared in “The Penguin”) but from their villains.

Colin Farrell won an Emmy for his portrayal of the Penguin, a malformed ugly duckling (and mama’s boy) determined to make himself into a crime king through a regimen of self-effacing charm and Machiavellian scheming.

With “Daredevil: Born Again” the heart of the season lies not with our blind-but-sensorially-gifted vigilante title character (Charlie Cox), but with his nemesis Wilson Fisk. aka Kingpin, a crime-boss-turned-politico played by Vincent D’Onofrio with terrifying intensity.

“Born Again” has a torn-from-the-headlines immediacy with Fisk, newly elected mayor of NYC, declaring war on masked vigilantes like Daredevil. He uses this as an excuse to send out a specially trained army of thugs to arrest and detain anyone opposing his iron-fisted reign.

Series creators Matt Corman, Chris Ord and Dario Scardapane obviously were working on this project long before Donald Trump unleashed his ICE army, but the parallels are unmistakable. Indeed, D’Onofrio’s Kingpin plays like a smarter, slicker  version of Trump, a crook fully capable of playing three-dimensional chess while bending public opinion to his will.

This season also benefits hugely from perfs by Ayelet Zurer as Fisk’s beloved Lady Macbeth of a spouse, Michael Gandolfini as the mayor’s public information officer (whose corruption and ultimate redemption forms one of the show’s most emotionally satisfying   threads), and Hamish Allan-Headley as the chief of Kingpin’s Gestapo, who comes off like the love child of Pete Hegeseth, Gregory Bovino and Kristi Noem.

Plus, the action scenes are spectacular.

“LEGENDS” (Netflix)

Perennial underdogs get to flex their sleuthing muscles in “Legends,” based on a real-life episode in which Her Majesty’s customs officials — uniformed drones most accustomed to searching suitcases at airports — entered a life-and-death battle with a heroin cartel.

Steve Coogan stars as a former spook who gave up espionage for a cushy job in customs but now finds himself training customs inspectors to go under cover in the world of drug smuggling. 

The key to survival, he drills into his wannabe Bonds, is to believe utterly in your “legend,” the phony persona under which you will enter the shadowy world of crime. The problem, as one newbie spy played by the ever watchable Tom Burke discovers, is that one’s criminal alter ego cannot easily be abandoned at the  end of the day. This makes for some anxious moments with the wife and daughter.

In theory these misfits shouldn’t be able to solve a problem that has stymied the British police and military.  Damned if they don’t — although with too many close calls for comfort.

No doubt the story has been given a big shot of melodrama in its transition to the screen; nevertheless, “Legends” is one of those rare crime dramas that never stoops to the implausible. Good stuff.

David Tennant, Nafessa Williams

“RIVALS” (Disney+)

Here’s yet another fiendishly watchable British drama, a lusty soap opera about  shenanigans (sexual and otherwise) centering on a rural television network during the Thatcher era.

“Poldark” leading man Aidan Turner (nearly unrecognizable beneath a walrus mustache) stars as Declan O’Hara, a television journalist wooed away from the conservative BBC to host an interview show on a regional network in aptly named Rutshire.  

His new boss is Tony Baddiingham (David Tennant), a powerful schemer who rules his operation with an iron fist, abetted by his gorgeous producer and mistress Cameron (Nafessa Williams).

There are at least a dozen major characters in this miniseries, and most of them are, um, very sexually active.  That especially goes for Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) — MP, former equestrian champion and a Lothario of legendary accomplishment.

The show is divided between workplace crises and various love affairs.  

Declan is too busy pushing his journalistic agenda for sexual diversions.  On the other hand, his very bored former actress of a wife (Victoria Smurfit) is continually on the prowl.  And in one slow-burning relationship that literally aches with unfulfilled desire, their 20-year-old daughter (Bella Maclean) has a bad case of the hots for the priapic Rupert, who (quite out of character) makes a point of not despoiling this young woman.

“Rivals” nicely balances humor and drama, and just about everybody in the cast gets naked at one point or another.  After this it’s hard to think of our Brit cousins as stuffy and reserved.

| Robert W. Butler