The Wire - The Complete First Season
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Movie Reviews of The Wire - The Complete First Season
Movie Review: Using this show as a benchmark for...
Summary: 5 Stars
New friendships, new acquaintances... just a simple mention "so, what do you honestly think of The Wire?" illicits only one of three responses: I love it, I hate it, I haven't seen it. Responses like "it's boring" or "too realistic" ride under the "I hate it" response. If someone says "I love it" my affinity for that persons intelligence and personal sense of their place in a diverse and yet mostly unknowable world grows exponentially. "I hate it" pegs their life-outlook in the CSI, Law & Order et al mode. Quintessentially myopic in just about every sense of the word. "I haven't seen it" immediately brings out the Santa Claus in me as I hand them over my copy for them to ingest, digest, and ultimately get back to me with a measured response. If they come back with the "I hated it" they're probably not worth my time. On the other hand, I just got my wife to finally watch the show; she hates those "f***, f***, f*** n' f***" shows (as she likes to call them), it took her five episodes to begin to understand what this new beast was. We watched, I saw the light of reality start to dawn on her on just what this was... nothing short of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment", a bit of Hugo's "Les Miserables", Dicken's "Oliver" - all of which are stunning comments on not only crime, but poverty, and the role that the everyday citizen who turns a blind eye and does not demand accountability from it public service officials plays in the further decline of our society.
Now, I love shows like Rome, I can enjoy the happy romp of BBC's Jekyll, Babylon 5, although sorely lacking in most departments, tells a mythic story, The Sopranos was devious tv that was just damn fun to watch, Six Feet Under showcased that comedy could come from anywhere, but The Wire is something altogether different. It dares to point the finger, it dares to show life in all of its brilliance and all of its ugliness, it dares you as a viewer to actively think about the issues presented while still maintaining a storytellers eye, and it dares you, as a viewer, witness just how good tv can be if its creators have the unrestrained balls to give rise to their finer instincts.
Movie Review: Great series!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this on a friends recommendation and loved the series. It shows you a side of TV that you don't usually see. Both the good guys and bad guys are multi dimensional people with whom you sympthasize with and root for. If you haven't seen this yet, you definitely should! i'm buying season 2 and 3 now. Movie Review: Flawed, slow and boring
Summary: 2 Stars
I know everyone will hate me when they read my review. In fact, why would anyone listen to me when almost 92% of the hundreds who have reviewed this series give it five stars? Well, just my opinion but here it is:
What was expected was that when I started this series, beginning with season one, I was in for a spectacular viewing. A detective drama set in Baltimore that mixed undercover work, court drama and various themes of humanity. Does it have it? Well, sometimes, but the delivery is done with ground shipping, and like the po-boys they try to show in the projects, I end up sitting around on a couch waiting...waiting...
...waiting for drama that never comes. Waiting for action that is weak, and waiting to strain through the bog of endless office talk. Perhaps it is in the office where the show falters the most, sometimes having camera shots zoom in on a person for three seconds at a time while they are thinking about nothing. Then there is the whole thing with the detective using a typewriter. Okay, did I miss something? Is this 2008 or 1978 people?? High Profile crime unit using typewriters, sure I buy it and a bag of that counterfeit money they had in the first episode.
I read where someone said the Wire was the Shield "With brains", well the intellect may be there but the likeable characters sure are not. Not in twenty years have I seen a show that has such a weak character development. The minor details they do try to add to give them some kind of personality, are ultimately just for nothing. The bad guys are not bad, mean, or scary and the good guys are just plain boring. Up that with a bunch more office talk where various stiffs wearing suits stand in dark corners trying to act like imposing forces. Again, nothing there, these characters could be loafs of bread with bright red twisty ties and they would garner more attention.
I'm so glad I just rented this season, I was planning on buying season 2 if I liked the first one, but this has to be one of the worst television dramas HBO has EVER done. One other thing that adds to the NO ORIGINALTIY section of their accolades from me is the fact they seem to think it is necessary to drop 400 F-bombs every show. For those of you who don't understand that, it means the F-word, and this show has them throwing it around like its DEADWOOD. Then again, that show got cancelled after only three seasons. When is HBO going to produce a drama that is fictional but still plausible, without stripping away every humanistic quality in the process?
Movie Review: Don't read anymore reviews just get all 4 seasons and watch them
Summary: 5 Stars
By far one of the best televison shows that has ever been produced. If you are coming from the world of network television or even fluffy reality shows on cable, the edginess and tough situations of the show will shock you. But keep watching, and you will soon understand that the education, political, social, and economic issues of impoverished urban areas are not so simple. And more important, maybe you will soon discover that life is far from black and white, and those that are constantly portrayed as the villains of our society (drug dealers, drug smugglers, etc.) are not as morally incorrect as we would assume. Sometimes its not about your job, but the enviroment and reasons that cause one to work in that position. Movie Review: A Televised Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Wire" may not be the first cop show to ditch the one-case-per-week standard for one season-long case ("24" is), but it's the best. Just like a great novel, "The Wire"'s plot and characterizations unfold gradually (13 episodes) and in great detail, with a more satisfying ending than can be achieved by telling a whole story in just one hour. My only complaint is that the resolution is rushed. They should have taken two episodes to present everything in the last one. It almost ceratainly is the first cop show to give equal time to the bad guys. Both cops and bad guys on "The Wire" commit deplorable and heroic acts. Much like Tony Soprano, Baltimore drug lord Avon Barksdale is at times an admirable businessman. Particularly early on he shows a knack for inspiring loyalty and confidence in his employees in a way that would make organizational psychologists proud. It sure doesn't stay pretty all the time, though. Episode 12's climax, the potential inside job hit on a young employee, may be the most gut-wrenching and terrifying moment in television's history. The dialogue on "The Wire" is sharp, poignant, hilarious and always authentic. Most of the acting is terrific. Standouts are Andre Royo as Bubbles, a druggie informant with a heartbreaking tale of addiction; and Larry Gilliard, Jr. as D'Angelo, the morally conflicted nephew of Avon.