The Night Of

Like most HBO shows, The Night Of was fantastic. The Night Of is full of suspense, drama, action, twists, turns, etc. But what makes this show so good is the performance of Riz Ahmed. He even won an Emmy for lead actor in a miniseries. The show itself has won a ton of awards and has an impressive 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ahmed is the star here but he's not the only one to give a great performance. As always John Turturro and Michael Kenneth Williams were as terrific as always. They both were nominated for best supporting actors in a miniseries for their work here. I was hooked from the start. It will keep you guessing throughout the series. The show is best watched binged so make sure you give yourself enough time before starting it.

If you were a fan of 'The Killing', especially the first three seasons, then 'The Night Of' will be right up your alley. Gripping, engaging, methodical story telling that is somehow simultaneously slow and fast paced. Even when not much is happening, you will find yourself bracing in anticipation. Sad it's a limited series. I hope HBO decides to produce more content like this. In the meantime, I'll be eagerly awaiting the next installment. The acting is superb but the pacing is the real gem. Long before the first installment gets to the meat of the plot, intense, ominous moments of foreshadowing are peppered at the perfect times to really keep you biting your nails without even knowing why. I sighed in bittersweet relief when the credits rolled. And this is only the first episode.

What struck me after watching the first episode of "The Night Of" is that this is a story that has been told on countless iterations of "Law and Order". The difference is the luxury of not having to tell it in 40 minutes and the bringing to bear of HBO's prodigious production values combined with a first-rate cast of mostly little-known actors.

The portrayal of the police is unlike anything I've seen before: annoyance about working past the end of a shift, the passing of the buck so someone else gets a case that will doubtless go into the wee hours of the morning, the careless handling of evidence due to available manpower. Here the police are neither heroes nor villains, rather they're just working men and women doing a job.

The atmosphere of the precinct house in the middle of the night is palpable as is the overwhelming sense of helplessness felt by the naive lead character as his night goes from bad to worse. John Torturro's portrayal of a low rent defense attorney who stumbles onto a case much bigger than he imagined holds great promise for future episodes.

As I said at the beginning, it's hardly a story we've not seen before but we've never seen it told this well. I look forward to watching it develop.

HBO's new crime drama 'The Night Of' has sucked me in right from the very beginning. The pilot starts up very slow but builds suspense as it starts to tell the story, and that's where it shines; in it's storytelling. It was dramatically convincing and had a pleasantly dark atmosphere.

The pilot was very long (1hr 20min) but it felt much shorter, it was tense from start to finish, in the sense of the story it was actually very predictable, but it was the acting and how the story was portrayed that made it so gripping and watchable. Not a second went by where my attention wasn't glued to the TV screen.

What really made me love the pilot was how REAL the story felt, there wasn't a moment that made me think that it was a stupid story, it felt REAL. The acting was superb by everyone, the cinematography was perfect with it's overall dark tone and lighting, and the music just set the scene playing in the background to the tone of the show.

The overall mood of the show has been set for the series, and if it stays at this standard for the rest of the series it will be an ultimate success. I look forward to where the rest of this series takes us! No complaints yet!

9/10

Stunning, unpredictable, fresh, cynical. Perfect casting and sub plots. Scarily close to the bone on key social and religious tensions all around us. Authentic, gripping, binge-worthy