Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Tom Hardy
“MOBLAND’’ (Paramount )
When it comes to reprehensible behavior and mindless violence, American criminals seem positively enlightened compared to the mayhem-dishing psychos inhabiting British series like “Gangs of London” and, now, “Mobland.”
In “Mobland” the seemingly omnipresent Tom Hardy plays Harry, the stoic but ruthlessly effective lieutenant to the Harrigans, one of London’s two major crime syndicates.
Hardy, who is watchable in even iffy material, here gets the most out of Harry’s slow-burn personality. This is a guy who seems calm even when spraying a machine gun in a war for supremacy in London’s illicit drug trade.
But the real acting meat goes to Pierce Brosnan as Conrad Harrigan, the arrogant, emotionally loose-canon boss of the clan, and especially Helen Mirren as his wife Maeve, a scheming Lady Macbeth with a gloriously foul mouth and a chess master’s talent for duplicitous scheming. Emmys seem obvious.
Toss in Paddy Considine as their tormented son, Anson Boon as his homicidal spoiled-brat teenager and Joanne Froggatt as Harry’s kept-in-the-dark wife, and you’ve got a pedigreed supporting cast.
Keep your eyes open for brief but telling perfs from the likes of Janet McTeer and Toby Jones.
Wagner Moura, Brian Tyree Henry
“DOPE THIEF”(Apple +)
Is there any role Brian Tyree Henry can’t play?
He’s impressed as a perplexed rapper in TV’s “Atlanta,” been a heavy in actioners like “Bullet Train” and showed his humanistic side in “Causeway” and “The Fire Inside.”
He massages all those facets into his lead performance in “Dope Thief,” a crime drama that also serves as a touching bromance.
Ray Driscoll (Henry) and his buddy Manny (Wagner Moura) are ex cons who now earn a living by posing as DEA agents and ripping off drug houses. It’s the perfect crime, since their victims aren’t about to go to the authorities for redress.
Perfect until, that is, their latest score results in a shootout. Turns out their target was actually part of a federal sting operation. Among the dead is a government agent; surviving but badly wounded is DEA agent Mina (an excellent Marin Ireland), now determined to track down the guys responsible for killing her partner.
And that’s not even mentioning the white supremacist motorcycle gang who were the original target of the sting and now seeking to recover their cash.
“Dope Thief” alternates between high drama and some satiric comedy, not always making the transition gracefully. But Henry and Moura are weirdly compelling as two guys in way over their heads, with Moura’s character burdened by a bad case of conscience.
And you’ve gotta love Kate Mulgrew as Ray’s chain-smoking, casino-crawling mother (or is it stepmother?)
Alexej Manvelov, Matthew Goode, Leah Byrne
“DEPT. Q” (Netflix)
Based on Danish author Carl Adler-Olsen’s series of crime novels, “Dept. Q” takes his yarn about a squad of police misfits and plops them down in Scotland.
Matthew Goode, whom I usually associate with fairy genteel roles, here is having almost too much fun as scuzzy, scraggly Carl Morck, a police detective with a Scroogish personality who, to keep him out of his colleagues’ hair, is given his own cold case unit operating from the dank basement of police headquarters.
Though a fierce loner, Carl finds himself saddled with other officers from the department’s roster of losers.
Alexej Manvelov is borderline brilliant as Akram, a quiet, seemingly gentle refugee from Syria whose kindly exterior hides a disturbing knowledge of torture techniques. Leah Byrne is Rose, a Kewpie doll of a cop out of the loop since accidentally killing a citizen during a high-speed chase. And Jamie Sives is Hardy, Carls’ old partner now paralyzed after a shooting but still able to man a computer.
This first season is dedicated to the search for a prosecuting attorney (Chloe Pirrie) who has been missing for four years. Periodically the action shifts from Carl and his crew to a remote location where the woman has been enduring a hellish imprisonment.
Though there are parts of the yarn that seem underdeveloped or even superfluous (I’m thinking Carl’s contentious relationship with his angry motherless stepson and his mandated sessions with a shrink played by Kelly Macdonald — who may in upcoming seasons turn into a love interest), the central crime and its slow unravelling makes for compulsory viewing.
Erika Henningsen, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Marco Calvani
“THE FOUR SEASONS”(Netflix)
This spinoff from Alan Alda’s 1981 feature film is a quiet delight.
The movie followed a group of middle-aged friends through four vacations, each set in one of the four seasons (with musical accompaniment featuring Vivaldi’s ever-popular “Four Seasons”).
Tina Fey and Will Forte are Kate and Jack, long married but starting to see cracks in the relationship. The flamboyant Italian Claude (Marco Calvani) and the workaholic Danny (Colman Domingo) are a gay couple going through their own issues.
And then there’s Nick and Anne (Steve Carell, Kerri Kinney), who shock their friends with a divorce. Things get really uncomfortable when Nick starts showing up for group gatherings with Ginny (Erika Henningsen), a dental hygienist half his age.
Like the film, this eight-part series is consistently funny while tackling some pretty serious themes about marriage, infidelity, the middle-aged blahs and how the hell you’re supposed to support both members in a failed marriage.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 