★★★★★
What makes a great artist? A few evenings ago I was merrily channel hopping along and something held my finger.
Initially it was standout, actually not Italian but Jewish, actor Jon Bernthal, aka the Punisher aka Brad in The Wolf of Wall Street, but the script kept me. A policeman bragging about his achievements to his bosses —whoop dee doo yet another US cop thing — still, the dialogue was the sort where you had to lean into it slightly, the phrasing and punctuation decidedly specific to a time and place.
There was also something about the direction; practical, almost plain, but deliberately so, like they’d spent a lot of money to make it not look flashy.
A scene from We Own This City
In all, it took about 10 seconds before I realised what this programme reminded me of, then another 10 seconds to suspect this might actually be the real thing. Excitedly I clicked the Sky info button: We Own This City. Took that to IMDB, and there was the confirmation, two magic words, David Simon. Former Baltimore Sun journalist, turned author, turned creator on the greatest television series, if not one of the greatest works of art of this century, The Wire.
How had I not heard he had a new show out? But that’s what he does, every few years with little fanfare he’ll just rock up with something excellent, the last time being 2020’s disturbing and haunting adaptation of Phillip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America.
At a time when UK Jews were still bruised from Corbyn, it was a warning shot against complacency, almost prophetic in its timing. Although it probably helped that Simon’s father spent two decades working for B’nai B’rith. Still, that’s what he does, reveals the truth of a subject, whilst most people continue to fail to recognise what the subject is and why it matters.
The “War on Drugs” though, that’s something that’s never gone away, which is why Simon’s revisiting it here two decades later in a kind of Wire 2.0. Lots of familiar faces pop up in a disconcerting family reunion where everyone’s switched roles.
It speaks to the quality of the acting and writing that as the shock and excitement dissipates, you so readily accept the old faces on new people. I never thought I’d ever see Jamie Hector as anything other than the terrifying Marlo, but now he’s a conflicted gentle family man.
Jon Bernthal is a new addition as unhinged Sgt Wayne Jenkins, the centre of the non-fiction book this is based on, about the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force.
What’s really being explored is a wider societal structure, in this case the system of policing against drugs, which, while not excusing the immoral actions of those abusing that system, explains how good intentions can’t compete when the intentions of the system itself is rotten.
There’s maybe a bit too much repetition, but overall this six part mini-series is a cut above everything else on TV, distinctive enough to stand by itself, whilst instantly recognisable as the work of a particular vision. A great artist.
