‘Black Bird’ Features Outstanding Performances From Taron Egerton and Late Ray Liotta — Series Review
Black Bird is the new Apple TV Plus series starring Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ray Liotta.
The series, based on a true story, follows Egerton’s Jimmy Keene, who gets sentenced to 10 years in prison. He is then offered the deal of a lifetime — to get transferred to a maximum-security prison with the goal of befriending suspected serial murderer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) and getting the location of where he buried the bodies of several young women, in exchange for a complete commutation of his sentence. Keene is the son of decorated police officer “Big” Jim Keene (Ray Liotta), who in his old age is having a hard time dealing with his son being in prison. The first two episodes debuted on Apple TV Plus on July 8, and the rest will drop weekly on Fridays. We have seen all of them and we would like to discuss them.
Black Bird is the series every true crime story should aspire to be. Full of top-notch performances, intense writing, excellent editing, and some frames that alone would be enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, it is one of the best examples of the genre in recent memory, and definitely one of Apple’s best shows of 2022 so far. The directors of the series, Michaël R. Roskam (episodes 1-3), Jim McKay (episode 4), and Joe Chappelle (episodes 5 and 6) clearly studied a lot of David Fincher, and it paid off. The series gives off massive Zodiac and Mindhunter vibes, and even though they never really reached the quality of Fincher’s framing and blocking (but really, who can?), it didn’t need to.
The filmmaking is on par with the performances, which, if remembered by next year, could very well be in the conversation for the Emmys. Taron Egerton might have delivered his best job yet with the show, though that’s usually the case when actors are given the chance to fully explore a character through the limited series format. He is not only the lead actor, but also is credited as an executive producer on the series, so he clearly had some input on the direction of the story. His scenes with Paul Walter Hauser were definitely the highlight of the series, as the writing and directing were elevated to their full potential, and both actors met the challenge.
Hauser, who already played a socially awkward character in Richard Jewell (though a completely different person in every single way), gives one of the most chilling performances in recent television history. His portrayal of an unmerciful serial killer is truly terrifying, and the actor is singlehandedly able to show the worst humankind has to offer through the mere use of facial expressions and altering of his voice.
Finally, Ray Liotta shows his acting range one more time in Black Bird. Merely through his eyes, he is able to convey every single emotion he is feeling, and the tragicness of his character is seen in his facial expressions, with no need for a single line of dialogue. Keene senior is in a precarious health situation, and having his son incarcerated is not helping the cause. He serves as an additional motivation for Egerton’s character to join the mission and get Hauser’s Larry Hall to confess — he is the emotional punch of the series, and gets a beautiful resolution by the end.
Black Bird is an extraordinary series that we can’t recommend enough. This has been a very intense month for television, between Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Boys, Ms. Marvel, Umbrella Academy, and Stranger Things, but Apple’s latest drama is definitely up there with the best of those. New episodes will drop every Friday until August 5.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
