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francocholo
Reviews
The Undoing (2020)
Enjoyable but with major faults
Overall the show is enjoyable and better than most murder mysteries, featuring a solid cast, good acting, and a decent storyline. The courtroom scenes are some of the worst I've ever seen though, to the point of being downright embarrassing. It was shocking to see such terrible and fantastical writing make it through into production.
We Own This City (2022)
Terrible Cast & Acting
The acting in this show is some of the worst I've ever seen, to the point of being a huge distraction that makes following the story impossible. Every single line comes off like it's being read for the very first time by an acting student. This is downright embarrassing.
I Am a Killer (2018)
Episodes are hit or miss
This first season was decent and certainly higher quality than most of the true crime shows being produced by the truckload recently, though still full of faults and highly variable episode to episode. The second season saw a big dropoff in quality, to the point where many episodes were unwatchable. The show relies entirely too much on captions between shots in order to tell a story, which comes off as amateur and unsuitable for the subject matter. It felt so hacked together and rushed that even blatant typos even made it through. Compared to similar series like Werner Herzog's On Death Row or BBC's Life and Death Row, this series isn't even on the same planet in terms of quality.
Heist (2021)
Uninteresting and poorly executed
Given the obviously high production budget for what is essentially a cookie-cutter true crime drama with reenactments, this show somehow managed to be even worse than the comically bad murder porn for housewives you see on ID and Oxygen.
The first story sounds interesting and glamorous at first sight, until you realize it's about a convicted murderer who conned a crack addict into helping him commit a robbery before promptly leaving her alone, penniless, pregnant, and working as a prostitute. The story itself is completely incongruent with the jet set bandit image the producers try to portray.
The second story starts off as a promising rags-to-riches Miami caper, before you realize it's about a bunch of low-level street thugs who immediately get ratted out and turn themselves in.
The third story attempts to paint the heist of a few cases of bourbon in backwoods Kentucky by employees seem like someone robbed Fort Knox, and spends the entire two episodes focusing on a person who wasn't even responsible for the crime. Who cares if some lower-middle-class country dad sold some bourbon that no one even noticed was missing to his softball buddies? This shouldn't have even been prosecuted, much less made into a TV show. What an utter disappointment of a show.
Foosballers (2019)
Surprisingly Enjoyable & Well-Made
High production value, great story, and a memorable cast of characters. I wasn't expecting much and was pleasantly surprised with one of the most interesting sports documentaries I've seen recently. Highly recommended to everyone, including those who know nothing about foosball.
Gomorrah (2014)
Beautifully shot and entertaining, but far from flawless
While Gomorrah is an entertaining and at times excellent show, the number of reviews praising it as "the best series ever" is somewhat shocking. The show is unique in being centered on mid-level crime syndicates on the outskirts of Naples rather than the more glamorous lives of high-ranking Italian-American mafia families that we usually see, but that doesn't make one superior to the other. It's certainly not "more realistic" than the Sopranos, given that two entirely different subject matters are being presented. In fact, Gomorrah is far more cartoonish in its dialogue and storyline, especially after the second season. Just because the show is liberal in its plot twists and the killing off of main characters doesn't make it realistic.
The music, camera work, setting, subject matter, and Ciro are all exceptional. The dialogue, action sequences, 95% of characters, and overall storyline were borderline terrible. The Capaccio clan and Enzo's gang get a special mention for being particularly cringe-worthy in their acting, to the point of making the show tough to watch. By the end of season 4, Gomorrah becomes a parody of the show it was early on. Overall, it's an entertaining crime drama and certainly a cut above most of the trash on TV these days, but it's certainly not some 10/10 masterpiece like many reviewers here are claiming.