I remember when this miniseries first came out and was up for a bunch of Emmys, including Riz Ahmed becoming the first Asian actor to win Best Leading Actor in a Limited Series, but I didn’t see it until now. An interesting but harrowing story filled with great acting and a surprising amount of eczema content (premise spoilers.)
One fateful night, college student Naz borrows his dad’s cab to go to a party in Manhattan, but a chance encounter with a pretty, troubled young woman changes the course of his life. Naz wakes from their one-night stand to find her murdered in the bedroom, and despite his panicked efforts to get away from the crime scene, he’s discovered and charged with the murder. What follows is a tale of a young man wrongfully caught up in the criminal justice system, police officers more dedicated to convenience than truth, a legal framework that bends with the wind, and a family pulled into the wake of it all.
At this point, I’ve realized that virtually any media I consume involving police will feature civil rights violations, sloppy corner-cutting, and/or dirty tricks, so I at least appreciate works that depict these traits as bad ones. Even though most of the officers don’t express any outright vendetta against Naz, it’s clear that they decide he’s the murderer rather than investigate it, and everything they do in the case is under the assumption that he did it. The work of the prosecutor is equally horrific, such as the way she shops for the answers she wants from the pathologist. And even Naz’s own eventual lawyers demonstrate how much supposed justice is about playing the system, from accepting plea deals for crimes you didn’t commit to wearing the right color shirt in the courtroom.
Everyone is playing their roles and making money while doing it, but Naz and his family aren’t playing. Naz is locked up in Rikers awaiting trial, doing what he has to to survive, while his parents and brother wilt under the suspicions of their community as they try to scrape together the money for his legal defense. Though I have to say, while I understand what the story is going for, I don’t like the fact that everyone in Rikers is either dangerous and untrustworthy or weak and victimized. In that way, it feels more like Naz is just an innocent kid caught up in all of this accidentally instead of a byproduct of a broken system that’s working the way it was made to. And no, I’m not saying that everyone on the inside would be a swell guy looking to be friends, and I get that people do what they feel they have to to survive in prison. But I would’ve liked to see more nuance there.
All the acting is splendid. Riz Ahmed takes Naz through quite the transformation, killing every scene he’s in. We see Naz the naïve kid looking for a fun night, Naz the terrified guy caught up in something he doesn’t understand, Naz the hardened man trying to get through this alive, Naz the scapegoat, Naz the inmate, Naz the son, and Ahmed plays all of them with aplomb. He’s well-matched by John Turturro and Amara Karan (who played the awesome Rita in Doctor Who’s “The God Complex.”) As Naz’s lawyers, John and Chandra, Turturro and Karan have a strong dynamic playing off of each other, as well as with Ahmed, both separately and together. John is a cynical veteran who’s good at his job but has no illusions about his subway-ad status (it doesn’t help that his debilitating eczema means he usually has to wear sandals in the courtroom,) while Chandra is young, idealistic, and eager to prove herself. Also very good are Michael K. Williams (Omar coming!) as a fellow inmate at Rikers and Poorna Jaggannathan (who I love as Nalini on Never Have I Ever) as Naz’s mom.
Warnings
Graphic violence and violent images (including rape,) sexual content, drinking/smoking/drug use, language (including racial slurs,) some gross-out images, and strong thematic elements.
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