The Oath

Just stop it with the shaky cam it makes your head spin, sean bean is used so little the story is already confusing and this makes for an extremely dissapointing series was looking forward to this but gosh its as if a school boy with nervous hands made it stay away!!!

I wanted to like the show as its not set up like the generic Police shows, (it is an anti hero bad police show) and I could of liked it if they hadn't over done the shaky camera shots, to be honest at time it was more like watching a TV show in the middle of an earthquake. I believe as an earlier reviewer said they were trying imitate 'The Shield' going for gritty realism .The difference is in The Shield it was a real effect they had cameramen taking shots with hand held cameras. In The Oath they have used a tripod then created the effect in post production and they have over done it. There is also a problem with the amount of edits, they are constantly cutting from shot to shot. I get that they are trying to keep it fast paced but having so many edits takes away from the acting, it is a failure to show or give the actor the chance to act. So overall it had potential but it has been spoiled in post production

I just could not keep my eyes on the screen for this ridiculous camera work! I ended up running the series as background when doing other things, only looking at the TV - Actually, mostly at the closed captioning - when something really important happened. The nearly constant bouncing and shaking and twisting and turning of the camera along with the extreme close-ups was giving me a headache, so I turned on the CC and then focused on only listening to the dialogue. As other reviewers mentioned, a sadly under-used Sean Bean, too, made this a disappointing experience, along with the use of some tired cliches. Still, the story itself was engaging enough to keep me following to the end. Conclusion : something to put on when you need something to listen to while doing other things.

Despite the fact any connection to realism here will require a leap of faith, (regardless of the producers' statement at the start of each episode), and despite the fact the camera work can get a little annoying at times, and despite the fact it's a little slow to get going, (especially for Sean Bean fans), this is solid crime drama entertainment. Very well written. Great cast. More than enough well-crafted twisty turnabouts to sustain interest and keep predictability, (the bane of all cop show/crime serials), at bay. And a finale that skillfully sets up a season 2. This is my favorite Crackle original so far. Immensely bingeable. And the price is right. My only real complaint is the extremely graphic close quarters gunplay. I realize brain splitter is all the rage in this genre right now, but if it crosses the line into the gratuitous, it distracts from the overall quality of the project. Just saying'.

I'm still trying to figure out why Hammond's mother has two sets of eyebrows. Her own, and a permanent marker set drawn above them.

Why is it that these 'cops' spend all of their time doing gang stuff and almost zero time doing cop stuff?

The shaky camera stuff is trying to emulate The Shield, which grinds this crap into the ground and stomps all over it.

I was hoping that with Sean Bean starring it would have been worth watching. Sadly, I was wrong.