'Black Bird' Review: Ray Liotta shines in his final television role
It'll make you miss, and cherish, him all at once.
In the new Apple TV Plus television series, “Black Bird,” Taron Egerton (“Rocket Man”) stars as James Keene, a drug dealer who gets busted and sent to prison for ten years. This comes after a supposed plea bargain falls through, which wraps around his sentence like a poisonous vine that can’t be ripped from the ground.
But he gets a new deal from Agent Lauren McCauley (a tenacious Sepideh Moafi), one that involves coaxing a confession out of a convicted murderer (Paul Walter Hauser). This is a maximum security prison, far from the controllable grounds of his current prison hotel. Hauser’s Larry Hall is in prison on the murder of a girl, but there’s suspicion he could be responsible for up to 14 more murders.
It all hinges on Keene’s ability to befriend him and get close enough to get a real confession. Word on the street is that he is a serial confessor, and not a serial killer--but nobody knows for sure.
Based on Keene and Hillel Levin’s novel, this is a captivating series from Dennis Lehane, the crime drama writing genius who gave us “Gone, Baby Gone,” “Mystic River,” and “The Drop.” The latter book was adapted into a feature film starring Tom Hardy and the late James Gandolfini. Lehane’s latest project includes the final television performance from the late Ray Liotta, who portrays Keene’s ailing ex-cop father.
It’s not a run-of-the-mill performance either, or a last chance look at bravado output of emotion. It’s just a great actor turning in great work. Liotta pulls from his “Blow” playbook in building “Big Jim” Keene, the 20-plus years on the force pop who needed his son’s help to bail him out, perhaps setting him on a path to criminality.
We meet him early on in the first episode of the six-episode series (two are available at the moment). He is on the phone with Egerton’s Jimmy, a steel prison wall separating father and son as they hash out his options. Busted on a drugs and weapons charge, young Jimmy knows he is screwed out of free life either way the shoe falls. Big Jim knows it too, and if Liotta just leans into it.
His best trait was cold-blooded intensity, a look in his eyes like he could almost change things by staring something down. When Big Jim’s health takes a turn for the worse, young Jimmy feels extra pressure to take the deal--one that if it were successful, could mean an immediate release.
Make no mistake, Ray’s fine work doesn’t stand alone. Egerton is more impressive here than he was as Elton John, with no offense meant for an award-worthy performance. But there’s something quiet and deceptive about his Jimmy, a trait that just goes without saying due to good acting. The British actor beefed up for the role just enough to be intimidating, magnetic, and possibly deadly. From the sly Chicago accent to the prison-tough scowl, Egerton brings it.
Moafi is both cunning and luscious at the same time, a hypnotic and quite exotic blend to deal with if you’re Jimmy, or the audience. She was on the latest edition of Showtime’s “L-Word” and had a big role in 2020’s “The Killing of Two Lovers.” She spots a Casanova spade early on in her first encounter with Jimmy, but quickly understands he’s more brain than charismatic brawn. In subsequent encounters, Agent McCauley’s chilly demeanor defrosts, but her blunt edge never goes away. Thank goodness. Where the fuck have you been all my life, Ms. Moafi?
Greg Kinnear is terrific as Detective Brian Miller, whose town finds a dead girl that quickly links itself to Hall. That puts him together with Moafi’s McCauley, which sets them on a course for Keene. Kinnear still works steadily, but he doesn’t always get a juicy role like this. Miller is the old school type who can run a trace on a phone call while fixing the handle on a window lever. He naturally detects too, asking his teenage daughter how she can do her homework while listening to relatively loud music.
Miller trusts little and doesn’t like pulling his dug-in foot out of the ground for anybody. All of this built-up tension gives “Black Bird” a ticking time bomb-type feel in its first two hours, which means the remaining four episodes must pack some real punch.
Can Keene pull it off, and will the badges respect their offer? Did Hall do it, or is he leading the authorities on another empty goose hunt? Will Miller and McCauley get their guy, or get a lower-level criminal put in harm’s way for no good?
At least in the initial two hours, Liotta’s Big Jimmy looms over all of it, the subject of his son’s desire to get out of jail early. But in order to pick up that card, he has to walk a tightrope in a prison stuffed with the gnarliest of the gnarly.
Coming off like an older Henry Oak from Joe Carnahan’s “Narc” mixed with Fred Jung, Liotta steals scenes and makes you miss his presence in future movies and TV shows. He could do it all, really. Play the lead, the supporting, or the guy who just walks up and takes your scene away from you.
“Black Bird” will also make you cherish his work-and revisit other steely and intense, yet soulful-hearted alpha males he portrayed on screens big and small.
It will also make you hungry for the next episode, which is being released on Apple TV Plus this Friday.