TV Mini-series review — “Black Bird” (2022)
Black Bird is a six-episode crime drama mini-series developed by acclaimed crime novelist Dennis Lehane which is based on the 2010 autobiographical novel “In with the Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption” by James Keene with Hillel Levin.
Here Taron Egerton plays the character of James ‘Jimmy’ Keene who rejects multiple college football scholarships to stay in Chicago to deal with narcotics as he sees great money in such dealings. He is ultimately arrested on charges of drugs and accepts a plea bargain from district attorney which goes badly as instead of getting released after four years with parole, he gets ten years without parole.
Taron Egerton has really come a long way from being a teenager in Kingsman to being a matured actor playing a prisoner in Black Bird.
Taron’s character “Jimmy” has the innate ability of striking up a conversation in the unlikeliest of places with unknown personalities and his charming wit has made his current prison sentence bearable for him. Due to this nature, federal authorities wants Jimmy to go to Springfield which is a maximum security prison for criminally insane to elicit a confession from Larry Hall (played by Paul Walter Hauser) about the location of several missing young girls’ bodies before Hall’s appeal goes through.
Paul Hauser steals the show with his acting skills as the serial killer who is shown as weak, simple minded & who talks in a very feeble voice. He even conveys in simple bursts that he might be hallucinating or having some identity disorder who is doing these killings. He rightly won the Golden Globes for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series. His character is always in suspicion i.e. he is eerie, sometimes intense whereas other times he’s intimidating and is deserved to be in Springfield prison.
Late great Ray Liotta plays Jimmy’s troubled father who thinks he is responsible for his son’s incarceration and tries everything with his limited health to help him. Although Ray does have limited screen time, his performance is nevertheless alluring.
One of the high points in this series is the prison riot scene where both Jimmy and Hall form their friendship.
Before every episode, a message is displayed saying “inspired by true events” which gives an insight of how the real-life James Keene might have felt in prison under a constant threat of getting found that he was sent there by federal authorities. This is also shown on screen by brilliant script writing & direction where Taron’s character is revealed to be a “snitch” and a cop’s son to other prisoners. He is always tensed and would never know when he’ll be killed.
Series reaches it’s crescendo in the final episode as Jimmy is thrown into solitary confinement so reasons which can’t be revealed here as it’s a major spoiler for this series.
When end credits start rolling, we are shown photographs of real-life Larry & Jimmy along with few glimpses of the real case on which this series is based on.
This prison based crime drama always keeps us on edge about what will happen to the main character and my Verdict is 8/10 and a “WATCH” recommendation for this stand-alone mini-series.
Watch it online here →
Paid Subscriptions →
https://tv.apple.com/in/show/black-bird/umc.cmc.30gx1y8nwthydkrvhqu156p3
Or any other means by which you can get your hands on this series.
