HBO's latest crime drama soars on the strength of its talented cast.
Warning: With The Night Of wrapped up, this is our review of the entire miniseries. Full spoilers follow below.
The Night Of proves that you don't need a groundbreaking premise, or even a particularly unique take on a familiar genre, to craft great television. In some ways, this crime drama played like a very expensive, very lavish Law & Order episode. But there's a lot to be said for simply taking a familiar formula and executing it insanely well. That's the secret of The Night Of's success.
This long in-development limited series (which was once slated to star The Sopranos' James Gandolfini before his untimely death) was adapted by Stephen Zaillian and Richard Price from the 2008 British series Criminal Justice - the idea seemingly being that The Night Of would fill the massive shoes of The Wire in HBO's lineup. The show aimed to explore all facets of the criminal justice system as a supposedly innocent, naive college student named Nasir "Naz" Khan (Jason Bourne and Rogue One's Riz Ahmed) is arrested and placed on trial for the murder of a young woman (All My Children's Sophia Black-D'Elia).
That Wire comparison never quite held water. The Night Of never showed the same depth and complexity when it came to exploring the various characters and systems influencing the course of Naz's trial. Nor was there ever any question as to whose story this was or whom the main characters were. But at a mere 8 episodes, The Night Of really needed that tighter, leaner focus. As it stood, one of the few real complaints with the show is the fact that certain characters never received the full attention they deserved.
For the most part, The Night Of centered around Naz himself and his lawyer, the frumpy, eczema-afflicted, disreputable John Stone (John Turturro, taking over for the late Gandolfini). The first episode explored the fateful night in question, as Naz hooked up with Black-D'Elia's Andrea Cornish, made a series of increasingly poor decisions and wound up waking up from a drug-induced blackout to find Andrea stabbed to death in her own bedroom. Over the course of these eight episodes, the show explored Naz's time as a Rikers inmate and his evolution from humble, wide-eyed college kid to hardened felon. And while that dark journey played out, The Night Of explored the various other sides of the story, including Stone's efforts to make sense of the case and save his new client from life in prison, the Khan family's struggle to deal with their son's arrest and the resulting backlash in their community, and the prosecution's attempts to bring this controversial and racially charged case to a swift conclusion.
Turturro and Ahmed headline a talented cast.
From start to finish, The Night Of thrived on the strength of its actors, particularly Ahmed and Turturro. Ahmed showed an incredible range as he explored the stark, painful evolution of his character. In the early episodes, Naz is nervous and withdrawn - a small, helpless fish thrown into a tank of piranhas. But as he grows accustomed to his surroundings and works his way up the food chain at Rikers, Naz's darker side emerges. Increasingly, viewers are left to wonder if maybe Naz really could have committed the murder he's been charged with. It really speaks to the subtlety of Ahmed's performance that it's never clear whether Naz is a well-meaning but profoundly unlucky kid or a cold sociopath content to bide his time among killers and rapists. And to the show's credit, it never truly answers that question. It simply leaves us to wonder about Naz's actions and his future after the final credits have rolled.
Turturro enjoyed what is easily the meatiest role on the show, and he definitely made the most of his ample screen time. Stone is a fascinating character. He's someone who craves legitimacy and respect yet spends his night bailing out prostitutes and drug dealers and handing out business cards. His unsightly skin condition wins him few admirers. In short, he's a morose character who finds himself drawn to Naz both because of the career opportunity the case provides and because Stone sees his chance to defend someone who truly deserves his skills for a change. And much as Naz remained an enigma by the end of the series, it was never entirely clear whether Stone was better off for having stuck his nose into a high-profile murder case.
The best compliment that can be paid to Turturro is that by the second episode, I had completely stopped wondering what might have been had Gandolfini played the role. Turturro owns the part of Stone so completely that now it's hard to imagine anyone else carrying the series. Turturro made Stone a very likable but also very tragic figure. He was charismatic in his own kooky way. He also channeled that sad, desperate loneliness that drives Stone to be something more than the ambulance chaser who stars in bad late-night TV commercials. It really says something that Turturro delivered one of the best performances in a career that has included frequent collaborations with Spike Lee and the Coen brothers.
Still, you can't help but wonder if the show was a little overly infatuated with Stone at times. He was the only character who Zaillian and Price seemed interested in exploring outside of the confines of Naz's case. Many scenes were devoted to Stone's ongoing battle with eczema and his efforts to care for the late Andrea's cat despite being severely allergic. This material added color to the show, for sure, but it was bizarre that Stone was the only character to benefit from such an in-depth look at his personal life.
It's always nice to see Michael K. Williams on HBO.
At the very least, I would have liked to see more attention paid to Dennis Box (Boardwalk Empire's Bill Camp), the soon-to-be-retired retired detective who oversees the murder investigation. Camp was terrific as the weary, troubled Box, but his appearances tended to be minimal outside of the first two episodes and the finale. It would have been great to get a closer glimpse into the inner life of this classical music-loving, career-obsessed detective.
Ahmed, Turturro and Camp were really the MVPs of the series, but there are plenty of other talented actors worth mentioning. Peyman Moaadi (A Separation) and Poorna Jagannathan (Delhi Belly) were frequently excellent as Naz's parents. Jagannathan in particular impressed as her character grappled with being the mother of a potential killer and the question of whether she had truly raised a monster. Michael T. Williams (The Wire) boasted his usual gracvity and charisma as Freddie, a convicted murder/retired boxer who takes Naz under his wing at Rikers. Freddie was another exercise in subtlety, as viewers could never be entirely sure whether he truly cared for Naz or simply saw him as a tool worth taking advantage of. And Jeannie Berlin (The Heartbreak Kid) was terrific as district attorney Helen Weiss. The finale in particular showcased the ruthlessness lurking beneath Weiss' calm, pleasant exterior.
Then there was Chandra Kapoor (The Darjeeling Limited's Amara Karan), the rookie defense attorney who found herself in an unlikely alliance with Stone. I had no issues with Karan's performance. She wasn't the strongest actor in the ensemble, but to be fair, the competition was extremely stiff. The problem with Chandra was all in the material. In hindsight, it doesn't seem as though Zaillian and Price had a firm idea of what to do with her character, leading to the really bizarre, abrupt plot twist where she torpedoed her legal career by kissing her client - and follows that up by helping him smuggle in drugs. That was a strange black mark on an otherwise well-written show.
Apart from the performances, the main element that distinguished The Night of was its powerful, pervasive sense of tension. That tension was immediately apparent in the first episode, as Naz went through his fateful night and the evidence pointing to him as Andrea's killer piled up. That tension continued as Naz cycled through the prison system and found himself a lone, weak newbie amid in a prison full of hardened convicts. And that tension persisted right up until the climax of the final episode, as the characters and viewers alike waited on the edge of their seats to learn whether Naz would be convicted. The Night Of wasn't a particularly fast-paced series, but it was certainly never boring.
And it helped that the show ended on such a strong note. Ultimately, the show didn't attempt to offer any sort of profound, sweeping commentary on the criminal justice system. It is what it is, basically. The final moments of "The Call of the Wild" cemented what had been obvious all along, that many lives were going to be upended and ruined by Naz's trial regardless of the outcome. Naz escaped a life of incarceration, but he's now physically and psychologically warped by his long ordeal. His family was practically destroyed financially and may never regain their good standing in the Muslim community. Chandra's legal career is seemingly over. Even Stone is pretty much right back where he started. But amid all of these depressing signs, hope always remains. That was aptly symbolized by the final shot of Andrea's cat. That served as a welcome ray of light in an otherwise dark, brooding crime drama.
The Verdict
With only a couple of exceptions, this summer hasn't been the greatest when it comes to new TV series, which makes The Night Of's brief run all the more special. This limited series did little to shake up the formula when it crime dramas, but it was distinguished by its amazing cast and the pervasive tension that drove the series from start to finish.
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