C’is what is called a “big bore” series. And not only because it immerses us in the Baltimore (Maryland) police department. We Own This Citypresented last Saturday in preview at the Séries Mania festival, marks the great return of David Simon to the lands ofThe Wire (Bugged), the magnum opus that revolutionized the American audiovisual landscape.
The former journalist Baltimore Sunnow one of the most respected showrunners in the profession, continues his rich collaboration with HBO by adapting here the work of criminal reporter Justin Fenton (also veteran of the Sun). The meticulous investigation, published in France under the title The city belongs to ustraces the origins of the corruption affair that broke out in 2017 within the prestigious branch of the police called “Gun Trace Task Force”, two years after the riots caused by the death of Freddie Gray had already seriously tainted the reputation of law enforcement in Baltimore.
We will know this evening, during the closing ceremony of the festival, if We Own This City convinced the international jury chaired by Ukrainian producer Julia Sinkevych. In the meantime, we can already award it the prize for the most raw realism series, among a selection very anchored in current events and focused on questions of hierarchical violence (see in particular Sentinels, The Responder and Oussekine).
To stage this mind-blowing true story that combines abuse of power, racism, racketeering, insubordination and obstruction of the exercise of justice, David Simon has surrounded himself with loyal partners: his co-author George Pelecanos, the detective-reconverted-producer Ed Burns, as well as a plethora of regular actors in his filmography, including Jamie Hector and Darrell Britt-Gibson (The Wire), Rob Brown (Treme), or even Dagmara Domińczyk and Don Harvey (The Deuce). A newcomer to the Simon universe, Reinaldo Marcus Green directs the six one-hour episodes of this dense and breathtaking mini-series. We were able to see the first two chapters, which left us with a mixed impression.
Josh Charles as villain
Choral work multiplying the back and forth between present and near past, We Own This City is first disconcerting in its way of fragmenting moral issues. The character we enter the story with, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, is a fascinating charismatic loudmouth. He is also one of the most rotten cops in the gang, who does not hesitate to pocket the loot of drugs. He is portrayed by a Jon Bernthal (Show Me a Hero, The Walking Dead) unrecognizable. The faded toupee and the redneck beard have nothing to do with the ultra-sober look he sports inThe Punisher, yet the actor wanders from street arrests to armed raids, passing through the corridors of the police station, with the same assurance as the untouchable superhero. The harder the fall will be…
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By way of psychological depth, the spectator must content himself with a monologue worthy of procedurals Sunday night, which Jenkins repeats to a new recruit (he was given a similar speech when he himself was still a rookie): “Forget what you learned in training, forget the awareness courses, this is Baltimore . »
If this line and other similar ones uttered by the series’ second big bad, played by Josh Charles (The Good Wife), illustrate the feeling of impunity of the police, the problem is that they make redundant (at best) and unbearable (at worst) the scenes of violence that accompany them. But isn’t Simon’s hometown supposed to be a microcosm through which we understand the ambiguities of America as a whole? In the projected work copies, even the editing – sometimes choppy, sometimes very strong – lacks subtlety.
An urban western
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On the good side, we find the fabulous Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country) in the role of a lawyer for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, unfortunately her helplessness is matched only by the oversized egos of the officers she must investigate. So, at first sight, We Own This City looks like an old-fashioned urban western: a David Simon production that is not unpleasant, but certainly not visionary.
The slow, almost novel-like process of dramatic layering that fans of The Wire maybe requires more than two episodes to get up to speed. We will therefore give the series a chance when it is officially released (April 26 on OCS). Until then, it is better to dive back into The Wire, rediscovered by a new audience during confinement and in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. The sign of a great vintage is that it gets better with time.