True Detective
As with Breaking Bad, the US network HBO shows a talent for high-level and exceptional productions. True Detective is be offered as a mini-series in 8 episodes, but is actually one long movie that has shredded into 8 parts.
Substantially, nothing is fundamentally new: two cops in Louisiana are on the hunt for a serial killer. It is noteworthy, however, that this persecution extends over 17 years. 17 years in which the lives of the two policemen – played by Woody Harrelson and an incredibly authentic and versatile acting Matthew McConaughey – is significantly changed and screened by the film. Actually, a personality profile of two men disillusioned by life full of sarcasm, nihilistic considerations and a gloomy, grim humor. Two souls that come in touch with the dark sides of human malignancy and do not come through this unscathed.
It is clear that this is – even if interspersed by action scenes – not an action movie, but a drama. In long monologues and flashbacks the memories of the two cops are turned outward and the 17 years are developed in a chronologically timeline until the showdown at the present time. So, you have to bring some tranquillity, be prepared to listen to these men and really all the time to keep at it. A skip of one of the episodes would mean to lose the context.
You are rewarded by a very exciting, thoughtful and rather morbid tale of mystery, horror, depths, malignancies, but also full of vulnerability, mental instability and unromantic emotion. The sultry, swampy Louisiana atmosphere supports the nightmarish impression full of occult obsession, lies and social darkness.
Very subtly, very exciting, but also quite depressing and frightening of the human side. High talented acting as well as cinematically brilliant.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga, with Matthew McConaughey / Woody Harrelson
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9.5/10