We Own The Night.
6 Episodes. Starring: Chris Pine, India Eisley, Golden Brooks, Leland Orser, Yul Vazquez, Jefferson Mays & Connie Nielsen. Director: Patty Jenkins.
'Captain Marvel' soars to our screens this weekend with a 'Black Panther' worldwide, every boy and girl inclusive revolution to honour International Women's Day. But D.C. will say they got their first with Gal Gadot's 'Wonder Woman'. Because they did! And now before '1984', its director and supporting star Patty Jenkins and Chris Pine reunite (along with great Danish actress Connie Nielsen of this DC legend) before doing so once again with the explosive TNT, Dahlia drama, 'I Am The Night'. A California refreshed Pine is incredible. Whilst Jenkins vision of a vintage Los Angeles after Hollywoodland is 'Confidential' impeccable in this stunning, front seat and shotgun stakeout, slow burning, six part mini-series. A true events, half dozen serial on the bakers scale of Oscar Isaac's 'Show Me A Hero' on HBO, Taylor Kitsch and Michael Shannon's 'Waco' on Paramount and of late Benicio Del Toro, Paul Dano and Patricia Arquette in 'Escape From Dannemora' for Showtime. A prison break drama directed by the offbeat comedy gold of Ben Stiller of all fockers. It's no wonder after this the pair have former their own Jenkins and Pine production company always looking to tell stories together. As this neo-noir under the palm tree shade, bathed in neon jazz blue shows just how fallen the clipped wing angels in this city of demons really are. Unable to rise from the swamp and smogs ashes like their Phoenix Pacific coastal neighbors in this Californian wildfire of an L.A. in riot flames. Serving as an almost apocalyptic backdrop, self-absorbed ignored foreshadowing, storm coming warning like if this was going on today in this age of the social, heads down lost time. As the glitz and glamour gloss of an artificial world of Lost Angels covers up a numbing loneliness that it itself is stalked by something much more sinister lurking underneath by night.
'Monster' Oscar director Patty Jenkins bringing some metaphorical ones of her own in plain sight takes us back to the old California convertible and American diner soda West of a 1965 circa. Capturing it so cinematically in a Kodak flash of 35mm film which makes this one shimmer and shine in all its chrome reflections of the bright lights above. Going up against another investigational mystery, but with a crack journalist instead of a 'True Detective', Jenkins has her work cut out for her going up against two time Academy Award 'Best Supporting Actor' winner Mahershala Ali (the magnificent 'Moonlight' and this year's just lovely 'Green Book' best picture) who has taken the HBO series back to the brilliant Woody and McConaughey beginnings. The icon of Poitier or Washington heights also playing a man wounded from war, whose PTSD threatens to throw the aggravation of a constant anxiety into the order of the trauma he's trying to solve like our Captain Kirk and now Peter Parker (did you see the Oscar winning, 'Into The Spider-Verse?' Yep! That's him) Pine here underneath these iconic palm trees that have stood here longer than the Black Dahlia mystery itself. Patty, with the wonderful writing of her husband and showrunner Sam Sheridan and taking cues from both James Ellroy's 'Black Dahlia' novel source text and it's amazing adaptation starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Aaron Eckhart, as well as Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and James Cromwell's 'L.A. Confidential' (Connie Nielsen has deeper and darker shades of Kim Basinger's iconic angel in a white dress character), makes this period piece all her own with stunning landscapes and locations turned into iconic frames of perfect picture portrait that will be dark room framed as cinematic gems for time to come. But it's how she captures her characters that offers much more depth in its shades and strokes of dramatic art. A soldier come home to a life he no longer knows, with one he hasn't left behind that shows. Reporting on the Hollywood mundane in a Hawaiian shirt before he heads to those islands to investigate like a detective and play police when the real force won't cop to it (like 'Russian Doll', 'American Gangster' Cuban actor Yul Vazquez's perfect part as a literal beat cop, handing out the locked down beatdowns himself. Acting as another's hired goon muscle behind the badge). Working for a booze fuelled boss with a lot more under his Dick Tracy brim than whose got the next round of 'here's to forget'. A young woman struggling with not only the identity of where she came from, but who she actually is. A mother hiding her grief in the abuse of more than merely alcohol. A starlet socialite imprisoned by her jewels, riches and house in the hills. And a vile villain playing himself off like the haves of the Hollywood elite. But really what makes the very seeds of a seedy, sick side of this city. Cowering behind the slick so dark and dirty, like a smog struck nightfall as anything but a conscious calls.
Creeping like the sinister strings of the terrifying trailer by broken violin. Sounding like the turning of the dial on the vintage, cradeled telephone call that will change your life. The click, clack of the typewriter you try to rewrite it with. Or the swirling ice in the glass of something you shouldn't sip to your last drop. You are immersed in this black noir world of 'I Am The Night' the moment you draw the curtains to tune into it on the tube. And it's thanks to not only it's dynamic direction but a running with the night die cast. As 'Star Trek' and 'Jack Ryan' star Chris Pine (coming off playing a whole different type of leader as Robert the Bruce in Netflix's bravehearted and underrated 'Outlaw King' baring it all) brings more than his classic Hollywood leading man charisma and charm to this period piece that shows great chemistry with his director and the combustible drama with his co-stars. Pine may always have that look, even knocking on the door of this is forty. He can make a string vest, wool suit jacket and tennis shoes unlaced look cooler and somehow smarter than your Sunday best. But just like this story there is so much more than what's on the surface. As Chris shows like in 'Outlaw' director David Mackenzie's greased up and beard gravel Marlon mumbled down 'Hell Or High Water' (again an actor of directors favouring constant collaboration) shows just how great an actor he really is rapping on DiCaprio's porch. Behind the handsome Hollywood looks of a California surfing drift that never has to go home to dream alone once the tide comes in, is a troubled mind. One constantly haunted by the harrowing nature of what war is all about (young men taking each others lives) and what the real world he is sandbagged back into is really like today too (men who could be father's abusing what could be their grandaughters to blind eyes and forced hands). One beyond breaking point bar fight moment we're he loses it, holding your head and screaming in your face. Cowering under a table and hugging its inanimate legs like they were the human ones under it to what sounds like military gunfire. Is one as heartbreakingly rendered like Garrett Hedlund's mistaken moment of alcohol fuelled, sobering emotion grounded in 'Mudbound'. But oh how differently it ends. And this is why you're with him to said finale. Whether he's wallowing in his own filth or waking up half naked on the floor as the bottle rests on his sofa bed. Or even when he's sock cue ball cracking and socking a drunken sailor stereotype with the break. Under the pressure of unjustified disgrace brought on by those with the dollars to make people sense you will never work in this town again. Yet there's more to Pine's Jay in this post Gatsby party's over age than the violence behind the fire in his eyes. There's hurt and a need for and to help to solve this all too. But its 'The Secret Life Of An American Teenager' coming of age, Los Angeles born actress India Eisley who steals the show as Fauna Hodel. Gracefully maturing with her character before our very eyes. As hers show the soul of this story and her own in piercing conviction. She is the real hero of this piece and she needs no one to save her in this world today. She just needs someone to shoot straight and tell her the truth, trust that. Whilst 'Hollywood Divas' actress Golden Brooks can expect some Golden Globes for her chameleonic performance as a mother who is hiding a lot more behind that knows best disguised silence. Mums the word. Just like it is on what 'E.R.' and 'Se7en' famous character acting face Leland Orser on formidable form is trying to tell us through that newsprint. "Remember where you are". Or the narcassistic nature of 'The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs' and 'Inherent Vice' actor Jefferson Mays (with a performance as timely and traditional as his classic actor sounding name) in this narrative. Except we will reveal he's a dead ringer for John Cleese's Basil Fawlty with that pencil moustache cut more like an Adolf. But it's the big-three of Patty, Pine and Connie who really make this a Hollywood sign of the times. As Nielsen, this T.V. vet, 'Devils Advocate' and former 'Gladiator' queen is in character as by royal appointment as city of fallen stars, La La Land regal as you like it darling. But with so much more pearls of wisdom than what glistens around her neck and wrists. At night look up to the blinking skyline of lights in Los Angeles and it all looks like the future from the day you've just left behind. But look to those shadowy hills, blanketed by darkness in the distance and you can see this towns rich and what all that money does to people history. And with this lesson of what's fact amongst all the fiction, Jenkins and Pine give us a 'Night' that like this city, we will never forget. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'Wonder Woman', 'L.A. Confidential', 'The Black Dahlia'.
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