Blackbird and negotiating the pains of true crime
It struck me that the main feeling after finishing Apple TV’s true crime series Black Bird is in itself surprising: I was relieved.
It only hit home once I’d done the typical scroll of Wikipedia (and other websites) to read up about the actual story afterwards and honestly the show seems fairly faithful.
The story behind Black Bird sees Jimmy Keane, sentenced to 10 years for drug smuggling and possessing illegally held firearms, recruited to elicit a confession from Larry Hall, a suspected serial killer.
So why was I relieved? Because the ending was satisfying. It wraps up neatly and provides the emotion and character growth that you want to see from the protagonists. It’s nicely dramatic and overall a great end to a very solid series.
I’m surprised because, well, it’s the problem with true crime stories isn’t it? Life doesn’t really wrap up neatly. It’s difficult to get a dramatic or interesting ending sometimes because adherence to the actual story doesn’t tend to work like that.
It’s tough to get a great ending even when a story is completely fictional, let alone when you’re trying to be faithful to a tale involving people that are real and who are still alive today.
Life is just too complicated for that, take another show on Apple TV (sponsor me already damn it), The Shrink Next Door. That ending wasn’t satisfying, it felt neither here nor there, but upon reflection there is considerable mitigation with it being based on real life.
I’m sure, because chance dictates it, that Black Bird gets a lot wrong. Yet when the core skeleton seems there and it’s a fascinating don’t-tear-my-eyes-away watch then I don’t mind too much. It gets the main parts right and it should be stressed at this point - James Keane is an executive director for the show.
The performances are stunning as well, Taron Egerton as Jimmy Keane is excellent and shows why he has been one of the most bankable actors for a few years now and he’s as good as you’d hope. Paul Walter Hauser steals the show as Larry Bird, his performance aims for a character that requires such precise, yet irregular, timing to pull off. It’s so jagged and a remarkably difficult performance that he aims for, yet he pulls it off. It never falls apart and by the fourth episode you can’t take your eyes off him. It’s remarkable.
Sepideh Moafi, Greg Kinnear and Ray Liotta complete the main cast and honestly I could wax lyrical about their performances as well. It’s a seriously superbly acted show and in a way that is more blatant than most shows.
This might be a style guide for how to do a true crime story because, I suspect, that upon looking for a story to dramatise, they studied the likely ending. They got it right because while a story might be great for the first 90% of it, it does a lot of damage when the closing stages aren’t done right. This was a great story to pick for a dark drama because yes, make no mistake, this is heavy watching at times.
Yet Black Bird nails pretty much every aspect that it needs to and while real life might be messy and complicated, this was a thoroughly professional job.