Movie Reviews for The Wire - The Complete Second Season

The Wire - The Complete Second Season

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Movie Reviews of The Wire - The Complete Second Season

Movie Review: Ten stars would be more accurate!
Summary: 5 Stars

Simply put, there has never been a better television series than The Wire. The series has the depth of characterization of a great novel. The Wire is funny, profane, heartrending--sometimes all in the same moment. What is most remarkable perhaps is that as splendid as first season was, and it was truly extraordinary, the second season surpasses it. I cannot recommend this collection too highly. It is a masterpiece.

Movie Review: The Greatest TV Show - EVER
Summary: 5 Stars

After reading this, you must buy the Wire and get 5 other people to buy the Wire. If you do not, you will have an incredible amount of bad luck come your way. Your dog will get sick, you'll lose your wallet, you'll trip and hurt your knee. Well, maybe not, but go get the Wire anyways and tell others to get it too because:
- the plot and storylines are deeper than Atlantis
- the dialogue and acting are precise and creative
- you'll doubt if there really is hope for humanity

Movie Review: While good, it's not great
Summary: 3 Stars

I just watched the second season of The Wire and while I loved the first season and look forwad to what appears to be a return to the more cohesive formula that marked the first season, season two was found to be lacking. The pacing and character development is disjointed, and the new additions to the cast added little to the overall enemble. Specifically, the charcter of McNulty is floating aimlessly thorughout the first part of the season, while we are still shown the drug dealing crew from the first season, they appear to be little more than filler to keep the viewer interested and hoping that something better is to come until a little more than half way through the season, and the white, female officer who comes in via the dock story is so bland and of so little importance, there were whole scenes with her where I wondered why her character was there. As for the primary focus of the story this season, the corruption on the docks, none of the characters really came across as being strong enough to be involved in any of their criminal enterprises. One character in particular , Ziggy, should have been nothing more than a one episode story arch where he is introduced, we see what a scummy, racist loser he is, and he is killed. Because of his drug and dock connections, this might have been a more interesting and sustainable storyline than the story of 14 dead hookers from Russia, whose ultimat resolution was just as bland and insignificant as the story that spwaned the resolution. At the end, my only thought was I sat through 12 hours for THIS. The saving grace are the strong acting performances from the oficers of season one and the dealers (especially Stringer and Omar who are clearly on a collision course). If the goal was to show that there is more to crime in Baltimore, than black drug dealers, the writers could have focused on police, or political corruption, or if they still wanted the dock theme, really deal with the role the white controlled docks have and continue to play in sustaining the drug scurge of the inner-city. That would have been compelling, imported hookers was not.

Movie Review: "Business, always business"
Summary: 5 Stars

Each year, so many people whine that The Wire doesn't get Emmy nominations, it threatens to become the Lexus of topics to whine about. I felt that when I finished watching the extraordinary second season of The Wire, and in particular about the performance of Chris Bauer, but I realized what I was really feeling is the sadness and fear that such brilliant work will go unvalidated, that feeling that it is simply the truth that this is one of the finest series every created, and it just takes a few "experts" to agree with me to make that true. We'll leave aside the obvious argument about the accuracy of The Emmys, and I'll just mention why I know I'm right. Season 2 takes a couple episodes to warm up to - truly a product of season 1's perfection, a change in scope is not initially welcomed - as, in presenting the inner workings and corruption of the Baltimore port takes a few episodes to even understand. Once you do, though, you realize the extraordinary human story at its center - this season, there are the cops and drug dealers of season 1, but the true spark is in Dock Foreman Frank Sabotka (Bauer), his obnoxious, lanky, wannabe son Ziggy (James Ransone), and his cooler, wiser meathead nephew Nick (Pablo Schreiber). Frank is being investigated by Major Valchek (Al Brown), "because he's an a--hole," which is to say, for nothing, but when 13 sex-trafficked Eastern European hookers show up dead in a dock canister, his whole world of smuggling comes under scrutiny. It's that scrutiny that makes The Wire so intoxicating - Frank is far more human and varied than Valchek anyway, and the interplay of that younger generation (leading to one stunning, frustratingly human turn after another) gives it as much humanity as relevance, so much so that the structure of society seems to be equally as indicted as the personalities at its center. Did I mention that those cops and dealers are just as fascinating as they've ever been also? One halfway-point shock killing of a beloved first season character shows just how risky this show will be to make its stories true. To pull off as much as The Wire does in 12 episodes takes as much vision as it does skill and bravery - it is, quite simply, the height of creative expression.