STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Hero (Samuel Adewui) is standing trial, accused of murdering Jamil Issa (Roger Jean Nsengiyumva), a local drug dealer. Sacking his barrister, and providing his own closing statement to the jury, he weaves a story of how he went from being a humble car showroom salesman, until a girl called Kyra (Sophie Wilde) caught his eye on the bus, leading him in to a rollercoaster of mayhem, violence and murder.
This much touted BBC drama from writer Tom Edge, adapted from the novel by Imran Mahmoud, arrives on the back of a wave of publicity in the mainstream outlets, with it's majority urban cast, and allusion towards the black experience in the Criminal Justice System. Spread out over four parts, it portrays a convoluted tale that is intentionally made to seem unfathomable to those on the safe side of the law, those from the outside looking in as the accused pleads his case.
Performances wise, in the lead, Adewunmi is certainly impassioned, and carries the affair with power and conviction, assisted by an equally committed supporting cast, in the tale of a man striving to live a straight, legitimate life, who suddenly has to adjust to a life of gangs and violence, all for the love of a woman, which is enough to push any man over the edge. It's this kind of understanding that the writing pleads with you to understand.
Somehow, it's not as dynamic and compelling as it could have been, perhaps over drawn out at four episodes, with a bothersome ending that ends up leaving you to draw your own conclusion, but overall it's still highly interesting and worthwhile. ***
