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RTÉ News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Need a new thriller series this weekend? Try Smoke
"Whatever you do, whatever you know, however much lifetime wisdom you've accrued, fire puts a lie to it all." Author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island, The Wire) has reteamed with his Black Bird star Taron Egerton for Smoke, a nine-part series on Apple TV+. The writer and actor are in the best of company: joining them is Jurnee Smollett, best known for Friday Night Lights, True Blood, and Lovecraft Country. Chances are you'll be spending a lot of time with the three of them in the weeks ahead. This is quite the power trio, and their show has everything you look for in a new flame. In Smoke, Egerton's fire department investigator Dave Gudsen and Smollett's police detective Michelle Calderon team up to catch two serial arsonists - and both of their careers are at stake. Gudsen has drawn a blank in his work for over a year while Calderon's secondment is effectively a CV-destroying move after an affair with her boss. Things get off to a shaky start, but amidst the paperwork, put-downs, and ashes, a partnership begins to take shape. Gudsen tells Calderon that serial arsonists "tend to be powerless in their own lives", and from the get-go Smoke introduces us to one of them, fast food worker Freddy Fasano, who is excellently played by Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (Blood Diamond, Heroes, The Lincoln Lawyer). So, we get Fasano's backstory as Gudsen and Calderon try to put a face to his fires. You'll just have to watch to find out more about the other arsonist. With great chemistry between Egerton and Smollett, Smoke moves fast and deftly combines the professional and the personal to create one of the more intriguing procedurals of recent telly times. What's above covers the first two instalments, which Apple TV+ has made available now. New ones will follow every Friday until 15 August.
Time Magazine
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Arson Thriller 'Smoke' Isn't Nearly as Subversive as It Thinks
Smoke gets off to an insufferable start. Freighted with procedural clichés, the Apple TV+ thriller follows a mismatched law-enforcement duo tracking two prolific arsonists. Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton) is an arson investigator with a standoffish stepson and literary ambitions. His new partner: police detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett), an ex-Marine who's sleeping with a superior. Initial tension gives way to drunken bonding. Pretentious stylistic choices exacerbate the lazy setup. Episodes open with dictionary definitions of thematically appropriate words like transmogrification and, for some reason, fury on title cards. There are arty shots of billowing infernos. A mournful Thom Yorke song soundtracks the credits. In voiceover, Dave expounds, hackily, on the annihilating power of fire. After two interminable episodes, a bombshell resets the show, eliminating some of its worst excesses and contextualizing others. Smoke becomes watchable. Yet in its swerve away from one egregious set of tropes, it embraces others that are, if less irritating, almost as tired. An emerging critique of aggrieved white machismo comes off, mostly, as a shallow topical hook. Like so many disappointing Apple TV+ projects, from Nicole Kidman's Roar to Billy Crystal's Before, the series substitutes marquee names for quality control. Loosely based on the true crime podcast Firebug, it was developed by one of Hollywood's favorite authors, Dennis Lehane (Shutter Island, Mystic River), who was also on the writing staff of The Wire and helmed Apple's well-received 2022 miniseries Black Bird. The cast includes John Leguizamo, Greg Kinnear, and Anna Chlumsky. Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, a standout in The Chi and Treme, brings a fragile authenticity to the tricky but pivotal role of a maladjusted fast-food worker. But the actors are poorly served by the material. Kinnear is miscast as the detectives' folksy, complacent boss. Leguizamo's character is too broadly sleazy, Chlumsky's too bland. At the story's forefront, Michelle is a dated Strong Female Character with a maudlin history of trauma. Egerton, an executive producer, has taken on a role so elastic, and so clearly shaped by the need for nine episodes' worth of cliffhangers, it barely holds together. Populated by unhinged men and masochistic women, and punctuated by fiery, increasingly histrionic set pieces, Smoke fails to reconcile its mood of noirish nihilism with its efforts at social commentary. Despite feinting towards subversion, Lehane has produced a typical—overlong, caricature-laden, easy to watch but also to forget—streaming crime show.
Pink Villa
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sanchez Wedding: Kim Kardashian, Leonardo DiCaprio with Vittoria Ceretti, Kylie-Kendall and More Spotted at Welcome Party, PICS
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are set to tie the knot in Venice, and with the grand ceremony just around the corner, the guests have begun arriving in the City of Canals. The Kardashian-Jenner clan made an extravagant entrance at the venue. Moreover, many A-list celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom, and others, also arrived in Italy to let themselves loose at the wedding party. Guests at Jeff and Lauren Sanchez's wedding Kim Kardashian stepped out for the billionaire's wedding in an animal-print, body-fitted gown. The mom of four left her hair open and wore minimalistic makeup. The SKIMS owner looked gorgeous, and the details on the dress stole the attention of the people. Oprah Winfrey, too, joined the party. She posed for the paparazzi, looking stunning in a patterned dress with side cuts. She was joined by her BFF, Gayle King, at the airport as they departed their hometown. The Jenner sisters, too, stepped out looking their most fashionable selves. Kendall opted for florals, while Kylie chose to don a mustard yellow lace dress. One of the highly anticipated guests of the wedding, Leonardo DiCaprio, too, was snapped taking an exit from the airport. The actor kept his cap on while pairing the accessory with an off-white shirt, black suit and pants. Moreover, the Shutter Island star's girlfriend, Vittoria Ceretti, who was dressed in a gorgeous beige dress, was clicked stepping into the car to head towards the wedding venue. Meanwhile, Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, too, showed a glimpse of themselves ahead of the wedding. The businessman waved at the cameras in a black suit with a white shirt. His wife-to-be, Sanchez, stepped out in a gorgeous embroidered strapless gown. Other guests set to make an appearance at the wedding include Kris Jenner, Khloe Kardashian, Tom Brady, Orlando Bloom, Ivanka Trump, Queen Rania of Jordan, and Corey Gamble.
New York Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Taron Egerton's AppleTV+ drama 'Smoke' drops huge reveal in episode 2: creator Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane knows his way around a crime drama. The prolific author's novels were the basis for several star-studded movies, including Clint Eastwood's 'Mystic River' starring Sean Penn, Martin Scorsese's 'Shutter Island' with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ben Affleck's directorial debut 'Gone Baby Gone.' (Affleck also revisited Lehane's work in his 2016 movie 'Live By Night'). Now, Lehane, 59, is the creator, exec producer, and writer of the AppleTV+ drama 'Smoke' starring Taron Egerton, premiering Friday, June 27. Advertisement 9 Taron Egerton in 'Smoke.' Apple TV+ The story follows a detective and an arson investigator who are on the trail of serial arsonists. It's loosely based on a true story of John Leonard Orr, a serial arsonist from the 1980s who was the subject of the podcast 'Firebug,' but Lehane exclusively told the Post, 'I don't want to tell a story set in the 1980s. I don't want to be locked down in the past again, like I was with 'Black Bird,'' he said, citing his previous Emmy-winning Apple show, also starring Egerton. Advertisement 'But, I love the pathology of this guy – it's crazy,' Lehane said about Orr. 'He sees himself as a hero, and he cuts off one part of his mind from the part of him that knows he's a villain…There's something particularly American about it, too. It's like the need for celebrity trumps your own self-preservation since it was [something attention-grabbing he did] that, in the end, got everyone super suspicious about him.' Lehane borrowed elements of Orr's 'pathology' he said, but set the story in the present day, as well as changed character names and many details. 9 Taron Egerton and Jurnee Smollett in 'Smoke.' Apple TV+ Advertisement 9 Dennis Lehane, from left, and actors Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Greg Kinnear, Jurnee Smollett, Taron Egerton, Anna Chlumsky and Rafe Spall attend the 'Smoke' premiere at the SVA Theatre June 12, 2025, in New York. Andy Kropa/Invision/AP 'Smoke' is a darker role for Egerton, who has done more zany action flicks, like the 'Kingsman' franchise and playing Elton John in the 2019 biopic 'Rocketman.' 'I think he has infinite levels of depth and range, and I like to exploit it,' Lehane said about Egerton. 'I don't think it's been exploited as much as it could be.' The plot of 'Smoke' isn't much of a 'whodunit' since it reveals who the arsonist is by the end of the second episode. Advertisement 9 Taron Egerton in 'Smoke.' Apple TV+ 9 Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo Dicaprio in 'Shutter Island' in 2010. Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock Lehane explained that he initially wrote a version that revealed it in the pilot. 'Then I thought we didn't have enough time to get to know the people. So then we tried three episodes, and that was too much. So then we said two episodes because the audiences now are always looking for the twist. So, why not respect their intelligence and get it out of the way as early as possible? And that's what I did. Because we knew there were so many more surprises coming down the pike.' Lehane published his most recent novel in 2023 and said it might be his last as he moves more into TV. He said he took some lessons from watching Hollywood giants adapt his work. 9 Jurnee Smollett and Dennis Lehane at the premiere of 'Smoke' at Tribeca Film Festival on June 12, 2025. Marion Curtis/StarPix forApple TV+/INSTARimages 'I took a lot of pointers from watching Clint Eastwood work,' he shared. 'Clint runs a very polite, low-drama, low-tension set. I thought that's the type of leader I wanna be when I finally get there. And that's what I do. I don't think you need to have chaos and conflict to create art. Ben Affleck runs his sets much like Clint Eastwood. Ben gets it. He's from the area,' Lehane said, referring to how they both grew up in Boston, where the author set many of his novels. Advertisement As for what he observed watching Scorsese on 'Shutter Island,' he said, 'He's so far beyond what I think anybody could learn from because you're watching a genius. And he doesn't direct his actors in front of anybody. He comes up very close and speaks to them in low tones, so you never know what he's saying.' 9 Clint Eastwood directing 'Mystic River' in 2003. Warner Bros/Kobal/Shutterstock 9 Ben Affleck directing 'Gone Baby Gone' in 2007. Miramax Films/Kobal/Shutterstock 9 Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck on the set of 'Gone Baby Gone' in 2007. Miramax Films/Kobal/Shutterstock Advertisement Lehane said that he likes crime stories, 'because they're what Cormac McCarthy called 'fiction of mortal events.' Big things happen. I like things where big things happen. I'm not good at doing the polite comedy of manners. That's not my jam. There was enough blood and guts and fury in this story – and comedy, I thought it got funny in places – that it just felt really rich.' As for whether he's truly done writing books, he said, 'If an idea strikes me like lightning, then I'll do it. I love writing novels. I just felt like the tank ran dry, and it was like pulling teeth for me to write prose.' Since his 2023 book 'Small Mercies,' Lehane's only written scripts, the New York Times bestselling author said. 'That's two years – I've never gone two years since I was nineteen years old. It's a very long time to not write prose, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything… yet.'
Boston Globe
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Dennis Lehane says his goal with ‘Smoke' was to ‘look at chaos chaotically'
(Lehane also says audiences are 'way too smart now' for late episode reveals. He originally showed Dave starting a fire in the pilot, but that was too soon. Then he tried the third episode, but that was too long. 'It was like Goldilocks — the second episode was just right.') Advertisement The 59-year-old Boston native is best known for his literary crime novels like 'Mystic River,' 'Shutter Island,' and 'Gone Baby Gone,' and for depicting his hometown in all its complexities in 'The Given Day' and ' But Lehane, who broke into TV when he was recruited to write for 'The Wire,' has been returning to the screen more frequently of late, writing for 'Mr. Mercedes' and 'The Outsider' before developing ' Advertisement Still, Lehane isn't jumping into any old story, saying he turned down producer Kary Antholis four times for 'Blackbird.' When Antholis pitched a podcast about a serial arsonist that he'd hosted called 'Firebug,' Lehane wasn't that interested, in part because there'd previously been a poorly received HBO movie about the same man called 'Point of Origin.' 'But I loved the pathology of the real guy, John Orr, and the absolute insanity of being an arsonist who's also an arson investigator who's writing a book about an arson investigator chasing an arsonist with facts that only the real arsonist would know,' Lehane says. 'There was something so beautifully American about that.' (Note that Lehane speaks almost as profanely as his characters, so, for realism, you can periodically insert your own enthusiastic expletives.) Lehane kept one more detail from Orr's story: As a firefighter he'd once been trapped in a fire and he ran toward his own reflection, thinking it was another firefighter. 'I said, 'That's our opening, man.' That's the whole story, metaphorically speaking,' he recalls. 'Almost everything else I threw out. I just wanted to tell this story about emotional and psychological chaos, because that's the time we're living in right now.' The story is one of a white man with a grievance lifestyle, who loses himself to his own petty frustrations, something Lehane says he saw in friends growing up in Boston. 'I have friends who were angry about their life after being passed over for becoming a police officer and I'd think, 'Have you looked at your psych eval' and I'd want to say, 'You always ask everybody else to take ownership, so take ownership of who you are.'' Advertisement Lehane fleshed out the story with wholly fictional characters. Dave's unwelcome new partner, Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett), is a dogged police detective with scars and ghosts of her own, who follows her instincts but also her own rules. Greg Kinnear in "Smoke." Apple TV+ Dave's boss Harvey (Greg Kinnear), who can be a charmer or a bully, is pressuring them for results, but he has blind spots of his own. Esposito (John Leguizamo) is Dave's former partner who now makes 'tasteful porn for discerning customers,' Lehane says wryly. And, most significantly, Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is the second arsonist Dave and Michelle are chasing. While Dave's fires are typically set in supermarkets (Orr was dubbed the Frito Bandito arsonist) in a way that allowed people to escape, Freddy's rage propels him to attack individuals who seem happy, aiming to harm. 'There's this weird part of me that creates sympathetic monsters,' Lehane says. 'Freddy commits acts of pure evil and needs to be in jail. But he's a tragic guy, the loneliest man on earth. Dave is running around with his white victimization narration that I can't stand, where he's the victim. But Freddy truly is the victim of our society. He was vomited out into the world and never had a chance.' Freddy is loosely inspired by a Washington D.C., arsonist who said that working in fast food as an adult is akin to slavery, Lehane says. 'I kept that and the fact that he's African-American, so he's a perfect counterpoint to Dave.' Advertisement Amid the show's life-and-death stakes and explorations of racism, misogyny, and injustice is plenty of humor, especially in the banter between Egerton's, Smollett's, and Kinnear's characters. 'We need humor right now,' Lehane says. 'How else are we supposed to deal with the madness we're living in, with politicians being arrested for speaking out. We're watching the death of the Republic, literally. So you laugh because you don't want to cry. That's the best you can do.' Lehane, who emphasizes his collaborative approach to creating, says Kinnear kept encouraging him during the writing to deepen Harvey. 'He'd say, 'I don't feel Harvey yet,'' Lehane recalls. 'When I came up with his character's daughter, that's when we found him.' He views Egerton, who also starred in 'Black Bird,' as a 'creative partner. We push each other. We're a dangerous combination.' He points to a sex scene that might evoke (nervous) laughter if it didn't quickly become so shocking. Lehane says Egerton called one weekend and said the kinky scene 'needs a bit more. I said, 'More? Dave lights somebody's belly on fire. What the…'' Inspired, they went 'so far beyond the pale that we had to dial it back,' but the final result, with Dave dancing self-indulgently above his bound partner, captures something essential about the character. 'When we were trying to pick the song, Taron said, 'Since I was a little boy, my dream was to dance to David Bowie on screen.'' The song choice, 'Heroes,' further enhances Dave's delusions. Lehane says that his team really dove into how 'whacked out this story was.' 'People rarely embrace tonally wild shows, but we just decided to go for broke,' he adds. 'We're looking at chaos chaotically.' Advertisement It all started with that sex scene, when his producing partner's research uncovered the idea of 'streaking' or setting someone (safely) on fire. 'I said, 'No way,' but that's when the show really came into its own,' Lehane says. ''Seinfeld' became 'Seinfeld' with 'The Pony Remark' episode [where Jerry mentions hating anyone who had a pony and his cousin, who proudly had one, gets angry and soon dies]. We feel like 'Smoke' really becomes 'Smoke' with the streaking scene.'
