Brief Story Line
David Gudsen (Taron Egerton - Carry-On, Kingsman: The Golden Circle etc) was an arson investigator who had been dealing with two serial arsonists in his area. During his free time, Dave started to write a book which centered around his life and experience with the support from his wife Ashley (Hannah Emily Anderson - Jigsaw, The Purge TV series etc). After some time unable to catch the criminal, Metropolitan PD assigned Detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett - Spiderhead, Friday Night Lights TV series etc) to assist in the investigation. Despite his reluctance and objection to his boss Commander Harvey Englehart (Greg Kinnear - As Good as It Gets, Sabrina 1995 remake etc), Dave had to accept the decision.
Michelle herself had some issues with her supervisor, Captain Steven Burke (Rafe Spall - Men in Black: International, Sons of Liberty mini series etc) and also personal family matter that was the reason for her assignment in small town. Her ongoing investigation led Michelle to a former police named Ezra Esposito (John Leguizamo - Violent Night, When They See Us mini series etc) who have knowledge about the arsons. Meanwhile a cook for large fast food chain in the city named Freddy Fasano (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine - The Lincoln Lawyer TV series etc) might also be important to the arson case.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
The synopsis for this series was very brief, but enough to intrigue me as I thought it would be cool to see arson investigator at work, plus it has the unique premise where it was not only one serial arsonist but two at the same time. In addition, the category of Mini series obviously made me more interested since it would be cleared as soon as the show wrapped up. The total episodes though was a bit unusual with 9 overall instead of the more common 8 or 6. Nevertheless it did not really matter as it's still limited to one season.
When I watched the pilot episode, I thought the series moved in a rather slow pace which was unexpected as I thought it would be a bit explosive. It did not strike me as exciting and I immediately felt this to be more drama than action. The introduction of the characters were not fast enough though I thought it's still within reasonable pace. As I continued watching to episode 2, that's when the series felt more alive, especially with the shocking revelation. To my surprise, the subsequent episodes did not go as I had hoped for. There did not seem to be sense of urgency and no intensity/suspense as it focused more on the characters development (likely the reason for being highly rated by critics). Not until I reached the 6th episode that the series felt thrilling. But sadly the momentum seemed to be lost cause the 7th episode only got great towards the end, while the 8th episode provided a much needed twist to make for an intriguing finale. However despite few flashes of brilliant scenes, I personally did not like the process towards the inevitable end.
I saw during the opening credits that the series was inspired by podcast titled Firebug by Truth Podcasting Corp. After further reading, the podcast apparently was focusing on the crimes of real arsonist (I do not want to give too much detail, but basically the person had committed a long list of arsons in the US for many years and even claimed the lives of several people). This series itself was not based on true story and only took inspiration of the crimes and the person. The series was created by famous author Dennis Lehane who already had 4 novels made into films including Mystic River and Live by Night.
The cast particularly Taron Egerton was quite fantastic while Jurnee Smollett was quite on par as his counter part. I also admired the performance of Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine with John Leguizamo added some much needed lighter moments. In addition to the main cast, there were also appearance of several recurring and guest stars such as Adina Porter (The Perfect Couple mini series, The 100 TV series etc) as Brenda the customer of Freddy's restaurant, Anna Chlumsky (My Girl, Inventing Anna mini series etc) as ATF agent Dawn Hudson, Dakota Daulby (Longlegs etc) as Freddy's friend Lee, Erin Karpluk (Being Erica TV series etc) as insurance adjuster Reba and few others.
Overall this was something that was not exactly what I had hoped for. I was expecting an intense thriller series with lots of investigation and full of suspense, but instead it was more like a character driven drama. Although it did have a couple of shocking twists, but the inconsistent pace really did not help make me satisfied. And the ending was another part that I was not really happy. I could understand the concluding fate of the character, but I was disappointed of the methods to achieve it. However, that was purely my personal feeling, as I said above that critics enjoyed this series. So if you are only interested in watching what critics love, then by all means you can give this a try and I think you would like it too. If you prefer a more thrilling high intensity thriller though, then this might not be to your liking. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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