Although Black Bird has the “inspired by a true story” disclaimer at the start, I get the feeling much of what makes it so gripping is good old-fashioned dramatic licence.
Part serial killer thriller, part prison drama, this sinister six-part Apple TV+ series hinges on two superb performances by Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser.
Egerton plays Jimmy Keene, a convicted drug dealer who’s given a get-out-of-jail-free card – extract a confession from accused serial killer Larry Hall (Hauser) and be released from his 10-year prison sentence.
It all comes down to a series of two-handers between Egerton and Hauser.”
To achieve this, Keene is moved from his moderately strict jail to a notorious maximum security prison, where he must go undercover and befriend Hall.
There are a few sub-plots running in tandem to this central storyline – including a moving turn from the late Ray Liotta, as Keene’s dad, who has suffered a stroke and is riddled with guilt over his son’s criminal ways – but it all comes down to a series of two-handers between Egerton and Hauser.
It’s clever of the series to keep Hauser’s guilt (or not) in the background. Viewers certainly suspect he’s an evil serial killer, but Hauser plays him as a pitiful and childlike loner who is clearly suffering from mental health problems.
The burgeoning relationship between Keene and Hall is the backbone of the series and watching it twist and turn is fascinating.
The fact Black Bird is so good should not come as a surprise, since it’s written by Dennis Lehane.”
The fact Black Bird is so good should not come as a surprise, since it’s written by Dennis Lehane, one of the best crime novelists in the world.
The series is an adaptation of the real-life James Keene’s memoir In With the Devil, and I suspect Lehane has been quite liberal with the fictionalisation of it, but, when it’s done as well as this, I don’t mind at all.