Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1932 Los Angeles, Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys - The Post, The Americans TV series etc) was a war veteran who now worked as a Private Investigator with his friend/partner Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham - Kong: Skull Island, Boardwalk Empire TV series etc). Usually they would work on cases that involved non subtle approach but this time Perry was hired by his old friend, the lawyer EB Jonathan (John Lithgow - Pet Sematary 2019 version, Terms of Endearment etc) to investigate on a high profile kidnapping case.
During his investigation, Perry would meet a lot of obstacles and various characters including a famous preacher Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany - Orphan Black TV series, Destroyer etc), a black police officer named Paul Drake (Chris Chalk - Gotham TV series, Detroit etc) and few others. EB's associate Della Street (Juliet Rylance - A Dog's Purpose etc) also had a major role in helping this case.
As Perry was having his own personal challenges, the case took a real toll on him and would change his life forever. So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this series with some powerful performances.
End of Brief Story Line
I have heard the name Perry Mason mentioned few times in some movies that I have seen in the past several years, but never have I seen any of it since it was the titular character of famous TV series back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So when I watched this series without having any knowledge of his characteristics, I had a very open mind and just went with the flow. It turned out that he was a very interesting character to see and I believed Matthew Rhys performed this role amazingly.
The story setting of 1930s was very nice to watch and I got to admit that the whole production team were fantastic in their job of making sure the settings and costume were really convincing. The music also was a wonderful factor to add my admiration to this series with some instrumental plus some perfectly timed background music. What truly surprised me was the rather heavy violence, frequent use of coarse language and nudity in this series, so it's no wonder it was categorized for 21+ by HBO.
The story was quite complex with everything did not seem to be what we thought would be at first. I liked the development of Perry Mason's character from start to finish while another character that I truly loved was EB Jonathan (another top performance by John Lithgow). The tone was pretty dark with very little room for humor, though it did not make the story boring. There was one thing though that I personally did not like i.e the character and story of Sister Alice. Somehow I thought it was almost like a filler and unnecessary distraction though some people might find it interesting.
The most fabulous part to me was the courtroom scenes which later on I realized should have been the main attraction of Perry Mason. It really reminded me of how I have been longing for high quality courtroom drama. The last time I watched something similar was the multiple awards winners series The Good Wife starring Julianna Margulies, although that one sometimes did not have enough court scenes to my liking. The courtroom scene in the last episode was simply the best, even if the ending was surprising and not truly satisfying.
Aside from the names I mentioned above, this series also had a large number of recurring/guest stars such as Gayle Rankin as Emily Dodson, Robert Patrick as Herman Baggerly, Lili Taylor as Bird McKeegan, Andrew Howard as Detective Ennis, Justin Kirk as ADA Hamilton Burger and my favorite "bad guy" DA Maynard Barnes (performed greatly by Stephen Root). There were actually so many others but they were the ones who left great impression to me. And majority of them gave strong performances.
Overall this was a wonderful way to jump start Perry Mason series (this was supposed to be a mini series but later decided to become new series and there would be a second season). The character itself was created by Erle Stanley Gardner who wrote more than 80 of Perry Mason novels between 1930s-1970s. Fun fact: Robert Downey Jr was previously attached to star this series but unable to do so due to scheduling conflict. However I noticed his name as one of the Executive Producer. For those who love a good mystery/crime drama with some strong neo-noir sense set in the 1930s, then this one should be to your liking. As for me personally, I would have liked this series even better if there was not so much distraction related to the character of Sister Alice, but other than that, I was glad I gave this series a try. Definitely will watch the future seasons.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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