TV Review - Bosch Season 2

So if you haven't checked out Amazon's original video content, you've been missing out on some good TV. It's not as vast as Netflix's array, but with Amazon recently opening up their video service to subscription instead of just an add-on to Amazon Prime, I think it's only going to get better and better. I have so much faith in them because of a couple shows, but mostly the one I'm praising today, Bosch.

I was intrigued by the pilot when it originally aired through Amazon's Pilot Program (they put out a bunch of pilots and the subscribers vote for which ones they should make into shows) in 2014, and had totally forgot about it when the first season went up last year. I might have mentioned it here once or twice in some way or another, but one of my favorite things to consume is good detective work. Anything that showcases a detective working a case, starting from the bare facts to solving the crime captures my imagination in a way many things don't. My favorite movie is Brick, and my favorite TV show is The Wire. If you have a solid piece of content with a detective solving a case from just the bare facts to figuring out who did it, I'm your guy.

While I admit that Bosch doesn't play out much differently than an episode of CSI or NCIS, it's the delivery that sets it apart. The world of Detective Harry Bosch is shown as this pulpy, noir-tinged crime center, where our lovable tough guy ace detective is showing us the seedy underbelly of LA. It's not new, none of it is, but it's delivered in this absolute, confident manner. A kind of manner you can really only have if your source material spans something as concrete as 20 novels, as Harry Bosch has. So when I went into the first season, I was immediately hooked.

A show that from minute one of episode one knows exactly what it's doing and where it's going is amazing in this day and age, and this is exactly what you get. Since the source material is derived from books and it's a TV show, the episodes are perfectly serialized like a book. Each one gives you a payoff for the one before it while setting up the next episode, often leading you to a cliffhanger. In the first season, I absolutely loved the confidence the show had with the story it was telling, as well as how the story played out. It felt like this complete experience. And then a year later, the second season came out.

I immensely enjoyed Season Two of Bosch, and honestly it's because it's very much like Season One. And I don't mean that as an insult. Often with TV shows, the seasons will vary in quality in the beginning and the end, as they struggle to find their voice while the show is airing. Often you'll see a show start a little rocky but with promise, get really awesome for two-to-four seasons, and then falter as they struggle with the moral quandary of designing the show to go on forever and ever, and somehow finding a way to end the show in a satisfying manner. This isn't even a problem just limited to broadcast television, as Netflix has been struggling with this since the beginning of House of Cards and to an even larger degree Orange is the New Black. Both of which are "adaptations" of books themselves, but have struggled to find exactly what is appealing from the source material and delivering that to the audience. With Season Two of Bosch, I think the apparent quality of it is really a testament to the creators, as their vision is so strong of what they want the show to be that they nailed it not once, but now twice on delivering the exact visual medium of what those books should be.

Now, I haven't read a single Michael Connelly book let alone one of the twenty Harry Bosch novels (believe me I will)  but I could swear up and down watching Season One and now Two that they were perfect adaptations of the books they were from. Except Season Two actually draws inspiration from three different books, but it is so seamless in the show I never would have suspected it. Much like Season One, Season Two is a slow burn, but I never found myself anything less than enthralled with the characters. It is such an enjoyable world for me to be in that I have no problem with the way the story is told, especially as a narrative it is perfectly paced episode to episode. If there was one complaint I had about Season Two, it would be without giving anything away, the way the plot connects the dots in the case. In Season One I really liked the way the plot connected the dots for Harry Bosch and thought it made a lot of sense for the world we were in. In Season Two the plot connects the dots for Harry in an equally similar manner. I still really enjoyed it, and as a stand alone season it would have worked for me just fine, but having the case start coming together in such a similar fashion feels a little too convenient when something similar came in the previous season.

I feel a little odd discussing so little about the actual material of the show, but I genuinely feel that it is so well told that I don't want to unveil anything before the show does if you were to watch it. Is this the Citizen Cane of detective stories? No. Is this on the same level as my favorite police procedural, The Wire? No it is not. But what this is is a perfect recreation of what it's like to read a well crafted detective story. The characters and performances are solid. Titus Welliver delivers this fantastic performance as the Noir detective. Wire Alumni Lance Reddick delivers an expected fantastic performance as the Deputy Chief. I think the only actor that waivers for me is the girl who plays Bosch's daughter, and I don't really blame her for it. When the majority of the cast consists of fantastic character actors, it can be difficult to just be average. The story is enthralling and the show is shot excellently. While it's not pushing any storytelling boundaries, it is decidedly so, in a way where the creators feel the material can speak for itself without trying anything flashy.

Plain and to the point, it's excellent television if you like detective procedurals. Have you enjoyed CSI, NCIS or Law and Order? Bosch is the older, more refined version of those shows. If you have seen any of those shows, nothing here will be surprising about the characters or the story, but it's a masterclass in displaying how the story should be told. No filler, no wavering, just pure pulpy entertainment about a dude solving crimes and the problems he struggles with.

Movie Review - John Wick

Between personal reasons and being a little burned out I took a break from the blog for awhile, but now I'm back to rave about a little film I saw called John Wick, and why you should see it.

John Wick on paper looks questionable. The plot? A retired hitman comes back for one more job after some dumb criminals kill his dog and steal his car. The writer? A guy who's written two mediocre-to-bad films that were released in 2012. The directors? Two veteran stunt coordinators with no previous directing credits. This movie on paper looks like something Nicolas Cage would be in to earn a couple hundred bucks and would go straight to DVD. In actuality though, this film works as an excellent B movie that is surely going to help revitalize the career of Keanu Reeves, and maybe make him the action hero he always wanted to be.

As far as the plot is concerned, I've already given out the majority of information you need to know about John Wick. Wick is a retired Hitman, who left the life for a woman. In those years, she falls ill to some kind of sickness and dies. After she dies, Wick gets one last gift from her, a puppy delivered to his doorstep to encourage him to keep on living. However, some criminals break into his house, steal his classic car and kill the puppy. When Wick comes to, he vows to track down and kill everyone responsible for these heinous deeds, and he will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. The rest of the film follows Wick as he stalks and kills the bad guys and how he traverses the criminal underworld.

The movie is shot wonderfully, has a great soundtrack and delightful stunts. The gun play and stunts are exactly something I would expect of two directors who have worked on some of the biggest action films of the last couple decades. The writing isn't spectacular, but it never needed to be. This film is a classic B-movie shoot ém up, in the vein of Taken, Hard Boiled, Die Hard, Dredd, and of course the film Shoot Ém Up. The movie is less about the story than it is about cool ways Keanu Reeves can kill people, but it's solid and plenty for what it needs. John Wick looks excellent and has a playfulness about it in the way it was shot, they went into this knowing exactly the film they were making. They even have a little flair to the Russian subtitles the film uses. The score was well done for the movie, though I admit a lot of it sounded similar to each other, it worked to set a general tone for the film.

While the story isn't amazing, the world-building involved in creating the criminal underworld is fantastic and fascinating, getting an appearance from The Wire's Lance Reddick as the front desk attendant of a criminal hotel and Ian Mcshane as some sort of big shot in the Hotel. I could watch a whole movie just about the goings-on with this hotel and the people within, it's totally engrossing and fun to watch. The acting throughout this movie is sold as well, with solid turns from Adrianne Palicki, Lance Reddick, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, even Willem Dafoe and Dean Winters doing good work here. The star of the show however really is Keanu Reeves, and the acclaim is deserved. In the past he's gotten a lot of flack for his acting, being called wooden or cold, but where elsewhere that would be a detractor, having Reeves be a detached, calm and collected killer in this film plays right to his strengths and he excels in it. He delivers just the right amount of emotion to make the character believable, and plays it with enough cheese to let you know he knows what film they're making. The creators of this film weren't looking to make an Oscar-winning piece of cinematic gold, they were looking to make a kick-ass movie about a guy killing people in different brutal and visually pleasing ways while getting to crack a joke or two along the way.

Without giving too much more away, I gotta say right now as a fan of this genre of film that John Wick is an instant classic and I can't wait to make it a part of my collection. Go see it now and enjoy the ride that is John Wick.