Brian Tyree Henry shines in Apple TV uneven+ show

For a while, Apple TV+Adaptation of Dennis Tafoya Drug thief It falls into one of my favorite crime fiction sub -fiction: long -term friends, engaged in a small crime to survive, just to find themselves in something greater and more dangerous than and could have imagined.

Never a friend comed Drug thief Go to an extremely promising start.

Stars Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura You have instant and volatile chemistry of men who have resisted so many dark moments that they love each other even when they hate. The creator of the Peter Craig series has a good understanding of the language full of obscenity, with a vernacular pepper of this world. The pilot director Ridley Scott bases the story in the urban in his locations in Philadelphia and Philadelphia-Adjacente.

The story from Drug thief It starts small and then things climb and, in the process of escalation, the story becomes more diffuse. There is nothing wrong with an increasingly darker and lighter story as it goes. But in the division of the two main characters for most of the second half, Drug thief He loses his heart and center, which pushes the narrative before the fringes proving less and less interesting over eight episodes.

But back to the beginning.

Ray (Henry) and Manny (Moura) have a solid rocket. With badges and news of the convincing, they put well -planned busts on low -level drug houses, marking cash. They call what they do a “karma fee” for dealers who destroy the neighborhoods and compare it to Robin Hood, even though it has semi-actually protesting that they do not give the poor money.

Semi-actually, because Ray and Manny, who both have criminal records and fight with addiction, are themselves poor. Manny is advancing a lifetime with his friend Sherry (Liz Caribel). Ray lives with Theresa (Kate Mulgrew) who is not his mother but who helped him support him after his abusive father (Ving Rhames‘Bart) was sent to prison for an apparently long -term offer for unspecified offenses.

The series begins in February 2021-explicitly insurrection after January 6, but still in the influence of pandemic-and the opportunities for men with their competence are limited.

Manny tries to protest that what I do is just a lateral agitation, but while Ray replies: “Yes, well, it is not a lateral agitation when it is your only source of income.”

Welcome then to the concert economy.

Their next concert is offered by a former prison friend (Ricky of Spenser Granese), who warns them about a seemingly sedent kitchen house. Gives them a high potential reward for low risks.

The risk gets not so low. Lives have Lost, and Although Ray and Manny Make Off with a Lot of Money, Theyre Immediated by actual Da agents (amir arison’s nader and will pullen’s marcheth, so well as the vicious biker gang hired by a myster man whoy whom they only talk at the pone Man who sounds like Richard nixon doing a Boston accent, and who will do whats to take to wipes petty cons off the map.

Scott, who was prolific as a television producer, but not as an episodic director, offers a pilot. It is not that it is so epic and bright, that nothing can compete, but when you have Ridley Scott Regying and Erik Messerschidt, there is a look and precision at the first hour in which they said the subsequent hours – directed by the appreciation of Jonathan Van Tulleken and Marcela – cannot be reproduced. It is not the same as “cannot equal”, but if a pilot is a template, it is only widely followed. If I had not been sold on the pilot I may not have been disappointed with Drug thiefBut it was my favorite episode, without being clear.

In his more intelligent moments, Drug thief feels like a text parallel to Andrew Dominik’s Killing him slowlyA 2012 crime thriller, who was regarded as a mud when he had the premiere, but has since been reviewed as a harsh criticism of anxiety following the 2008 financial crisis. Here, Covid’s concerns are not related to health, but rather to economic ripple; Ray and Manny’s worst score comes from the interruptions of the supply chain that have prevented the legitimate and illegitimate enterprises. Paranoia and claustrophobia of the post-pandemic moment are among the catalysts for a drama in which all the characters have been supported in the corners so long that they are ready to do stupid and uncharacteristic things.

It creates a dark but powerful beer that gets to spread too thin. Once added various conspiracy layers, plus unnecessary ephemerals, such as the side plots on the Dutch in Pennsylvania, we lost almost all the interest for what Ray and Manny have been prevented. And that was long before an annoying anticlimatic introduction and then sending a great evil that could not be called.

The decision not to give any of the institutional figures in the series – DEA agencies and other law enforcement agencies – even the vague characterizations would not be so bad, except that sometimes half of the series are stuck. I couldn’t tell you anything about Ariston’s mark and Pullen’s markings, except that he goes to the gym and does not understand the cultural references. And this is for their characters. The exception is Mina Marin Ireland, which has an early death brush, which will whisper and irritated for the rest of the series and lets Ireland play a zero intensity (and a cruel humor) that the series needs despair.

There is too much time spent with all these people who are clearly not the series. The series is Henry and Moura, stumbling and grinding and watching things under control.

Boiling with exasperation and confronted with constant reminder (and flashbacks) at the young decision that has broken his life, Ray is a part that shows that Henry is more than capable of carrying a show on his own or with an equal partner. Moura, full of nervous discomfort and idealism of hope that you just know will be thrown, is excellent, but when the characters broke up, Manny has disappeared largely. This lets Henry to share scenes with well -played, but thin characters (Loving, Mulgrew, determined); Tantalizing, but insufficiently developed (there is a whole show that could be done about Dustin Nguyen’s son, Pham); Simply insufficiently developed (Michelle Nesta Cooper, a lawyer/interest of unconvincing love); Or insufficiently used (Rhames is excellent every second on which it is on the screen, which is not often enough).

Even when he is frustrated not accepted by the characters in front of him and the situations around him, Henry remains unusually good. Is a performance that deals with how funny it was AtlantaHow torn down it was Paved road And how fierce it was still in several other projects. There is half Drug thief that I thought it was pulp, fun and unpredictable and a half of Drug thief That I thought he was unused, joke and familiar. But Henry is a star throughout.