The Night Of

Stunning, unpredictable, fresh, cynical. Perfect casting and sub plots. Scarily close to the bone on key social and religious tensions all around us. Authentic, gripping, binge-worthy

HBO's new crime drama 'The Night Of' has sucked me in right from the very beginning. The pilot starts up very slow but builds suspense as it starts to tell the story, and that's where it shines; in it's storytelling. It was dramatically convincing and had a pleasantly dark atmosphere.

The pilot was very long (1hr 20min) but it felt much shorter, it was tense from start to finish, in the sense of the story it was actually very predictable, but it was the acting and how the story was portrayed that made it so gripping and watchable. Not a second went by where my attention wasn't glued to the TV screen.

What really made me love the pilot was how REAL the story felt, there wasn't a moment that made me think that it was a stupid story, it felt REAL. The acting was superb by everyone, the cinematography was perfect with it's overall dark tone and lighting, and the music just set the scene playing in the background to the tone of the show.

The overall mood of the show has been set for the series, and if it stays at this standard for the rest of the series it will be an ultimate success. I look forward to where the rest of this series takes us! No complaints yet!

9/10

Like most HBO shows, The Night Of was fantastic. The Night Of is full of suspense, drama, action, twists, turns, etc. But what makes this show so good is the performance of Riz Ahmed. He even won an Emmy for lead actor in a miniseries. The show itself has won a ton of awards and has an impressive 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ahmed is the star here but he's not the only one to give a great performance. As always John Turturro and Michael Kenneth Williams were as terrific as always. They both were nominated for best supporting actors in a miniseries for their work here. I was hooked from the start. It will keep you guessing throughout the series. The show is best watched binged so make sure you give yourself enough time before starting it.

What struck me after watching the first episode of "The Night Of" is that this is a story that has been told on countless iterations of "Law and Order". The difference is the luxury of not having to tell it in 40 minutes and the bringing to bear of HBO's prodigious production values combined with a first-rate cast of mostly little-known actors.

The portrayal of the police is unlike anything I've seen before: annoyance about working past the end of a shift, the passing of the buck so someone else gets a case that will doubtless go into the wee hours of the morning, the careless handling of evidence due to available manpower. Here the police are neither heroes nor villains, rather they're just working men and women doing a job.

The atmosphere of the precinct house in the middle of the night is palpable as is the overwhelming sense of helplessness felt by the naive lead character as his night goes from bad to worse. John Torturro's portrayal of a low rent defense attorney who stumbles onto a case much bigger than he imagined holds great promise for future episodes.

As I said at the beginning, it's hardly a story we've not seen before but we've never seen it told this well. I look forward to watching it develop.

This show has received mixed reviews. Some have loved it. Some have hated it. I don't often leave reviews however I do often read reviews when deciding whether to watch something. I decided to write this review based on the poor reviews because I felt very strongly about this that I just had to put my opinion across. This show is amazing. It's draws you in, puts you in the main characters position and never lets go. The acting is fantastic, the mood, the music the visuals are also great. I watch a lot of shows, most of them are entertaining enough but not very often do I come across a show like this that gets you completely enthralled and then has you screaming at the screen as the end credits role because you cant stand the thought of having to wait 7 days for the next episode. Like I said at the beginning. Some people are slamming this show for being "unoriginal" "boring" "stupid". My reply to these are as follows:

Unoriginal? OK, so the premise is nothing new, its not earth shattering but trust me, you've never seen it told like this before! Boring? Absolutely not, this person must have the attention span of a 3 year old because I couldn't get enough of the suspense and drama. I just could not wait to find out what happens next and you genuinely care about the characters! And finally stupid? I'm sorry but this is very narrow minded. This is a naive young man who makes some pretty silly decisions under the influence of alcohol and drugs. We've all been there. Which is what makes this show so great. It resonates with us all. It's very real.

In closing I would just like to say. Watch the first episode. I think you will absolutely love it.