Latest news with #TaronEgerton
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
If You Enjoyed ‘Dept Q', Don't Sleep on New Prestige Crime Series ‘Smoke'
There's a lot of noise around the big blockbusters coming out right now – Fast cars! Dinosaurs! Jonathan Bailey's flip flops! – but while the cinemas are busy whipping themselves into a frenzy, a new prestige drama is quietly dropping onto television screens. As Netflix's recent Dept Q showed, a high-calibre, low-key crime thriller can scratch a different kind of itch, and if you've burned your way through that one, you're in luck: another superior offering is on its way. Smoke, which consists of nine hour-long episodes, isn't set in dreary old Britain/Scotland, but takes place in dreary young America, in an unspecified state. It does, however, star several British actors, including a chisel-jawed Taron Egerton in the lead, who also executively produces the series. Egerton plays Dave Gudsen, an amiable and ominously named firefighter turned arson investigator who is wrestling with memories of the traumatic conflagration that ended his former career. Dave is also getting flak (I stopped myself saying 'heat' – you're welcome) from his boss (an excellent Greg Kinnear) for failing to identify the two serial arsonists who are running rampant through the local area. One of them, 'The Divide and Conquer' arsonist, is setting off simultaneous fires in multiple public locations including supermarkets, so that the fire departments are stretched beyond capacity. The other, the 'Milkjug' guy, is burning down ordinary people's houses with cooking oil, though viewers are given more than a tip-off of who that might be with the introduction of downtrodden fry cook Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine). Dave, however, is having minimal success tracking down either culprit – in fact, he seems rather distracted by his own literary ambitions, as he's got a schlocky fictionalised memoir on the go – and the situation is raging out of control. The corporation that owns the supermarkets isn't happy and is threatening to take action against the whole department; that, if not people's houses burning down, might be what's needed to light a firecracker up Dave's... (sorry but it's so hard!). What does Dave need? Why, a partner of course! And preferably one towards whom he can feel mild animosity, if not outright contempt. Enter Michelle Calderon (another conspicuous name, from the Spanish for 'cauldron'), played by the impressively self-contained Jurnee Smollett, a detective from a different police force who has been assigned to assist Dave for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Michelle has secrets, including a toxic affair with her former boss (another Brit, Rafe Spall) and some fire-related trauma from her earlier life. She's doing her best to block it out – mostly by exercise – but the past, as we know, doesn't like to stay buried. Of course these elements are all familiar, some might say hackneyed, tropes of the crime genre, but what elevates Smoke – which is based on the true-crime podcast Firebug – is the quality of its cast and, thanks to writer Dennis Lehane (Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island), who created and wrote the series, its big-swinging script. 'Fire doesn't give a fuck about your wallet, or the size of your gun, or the size of your dick you wish was the size of your gun,' narrates Egerton, presumably quoting from the book Dave's writing in giant letters in his notepad (maybe it's not so bad after all!). It's punchy stuff. Smoke looks great too – all desaturated compositions of sickly grey-greens, with the striking billows of pale yellow when a fire is burning white-hot. And fire really is staggering beautiful, as much as it is terrifying and obliterating and all the other things that get writer-mode Dave so hot under the collar. It's certainly a change to have a drama that focuses on ash dispersal rather than blood spatter. (For a bit of bonus cred, the title track, over elegant sequences of smouldering pages, is performed by Radiohead's Thom Yorke.) That said, there are no dinosaurs, or F1 cars, or flip-flops. But Smoke does have tension, and great performances, and slow-burn simmer. Also, if you stick with it, the promise of some serious twists (and John Leguziamo!) to come. 'Smoke' is now streaming on Apple TV+ with new episodes every Friday You Might Also Like The Best Men's Sunglasses For Summer '19 There's A Smartwatch For Every Sort Of Guy What You Should Buy For Your Groomsmen (And What They Really Want)
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Smoke review – no TV show has ever been worth sticking with more
I never want to include spoilers, but sometimes they cannot be avoided. So, because I want you to stick with the new miniseries by Dennis Lehane, starring Taron Egerton (the pair reuniting after their great success with 2022's Black Bird), and enjoy the myriad benefits it will reap, I urge you to ignore any misgivings you have about the first two episodes of Smoke. Most of them will fall away. The tonal inconsistencies, the apparent self-indulgence of Lehane with his protagonist's hobby, the dabs of bad characterisation – just keep the faith. If you can't, then Google the true crime podcast on which Smoke is based and work out what must be happening from there. I'm not giving you the title because you'll be ruining a lot of fun for yourself. It is not as though sticking with it will be too much of a hardship, even if you do have loads of questions. At its inception, Smoke is at the very least a solid police procedural. Egerton plays Dave Gudsen, a former firefighter who became an arson investigator after a traumatic callout put an end to his original career. When two serial arsonists start setting fires all over his patch and his searches for them stall, a detective from the local police department, Michelle Calderon (Jurnee Smollett), is brought in to help. She is in effect being punished for ending an affair with her captain (Rafe Spall) and is eager to catch the bad guys and restore her standing. Further complications to her private life include a mother in jail for an act first suggested by Calderon's flashbacks to a terrifying experience in her childhood, then confirmed by her attendance at her mother's parole hearing, in the face of deep hostility from her siblings. We meet one of the main suspects long before she and Gudsen do. Freddy Fasano (a mesmerising performance by Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, which should see him clean up at awards time as thoroughly as Paul Walter Hauser did after Black Bird) is a cowed fry cook at a fast food outlet. Among other things, Lehane and Mwine make him a study in dreadful loneliness, whose ramifications spread like the fires set around the neighbourhood. One of the arsonists uses the 'divide and conquer' method – setting alight crisp aisles (So fatty! So flammable!) in supermarkets before starting bigger fires elsewhere so the emergency services are stretched thin. It suggests someone with a working knowledge of the department's resources, so Gudsen and Calderon begin the long task of matching firefighters' absence records with the days previous fires occurred and homing in on the possible perpetrator. Smoke becomes a cat and mouse game, with the opposing sides circling each other in ways that become increasingly extreme, but never quite tip over into preposterous. It is hugely entertaining, though it is a shame that the main story slightly swamps Freddy's and gives Mwine less to do as time goes on. But Egerton serves up an increasingly layered, clever performance as Gudsen, hitting every ball Lehane and the true story on which Smoke is based throw at him out of the park. It will certainly set him up for further and deserved success. Let's hope it does the same for Mwine. Hang in there, and enjoy. Smoke is on Apple TV+ now.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Bear,' ‘My Mom Jayne,' Lorde's ‘Virgin,' and the best to stream this weekend: June 27, 2025
Like clockwork, it's time yet again for another helping of The Bear. More from Gold Derby Overexposing Pedro Pascal, revisiting that 'Sinners' spit scene, Springsteen 'Tracks II' ranked, and what to read this weekend: June 27, 2025 'F1: The Movie' - Instant Oscar predictions FX's award-winning comedy (we're not going to engage in that tired argument again) returns for its fourth season this week. Across 10 new episodes — all of which are now available to stream on Hulu — Carmy (Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (fellow Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, also an Emmy winner), and the rest of the family are moving forward and attempting to make the restaurant a success following middling reviews that call out the chaos and inconsistency of their dishes. Their pursuit of culinary excellence in the face of yet more challenges — including dwindling operational expenses — drives the season, resulting in a compelling new chapter that makes The Bear the awards contender to watch this weekend. However, if you're looking for a more traditional drama, our other prestige picks include: Smoke: Black Bird's Dennis Lehane returns to Apple TV+ with this new series inspired by true events. Adapted from the Firebug podcast, the series follows a firefighter-turned-arson investigator who wants to be a writer (Taron Egerton, also an executive producer) and a police detective who's made one too many questionable choices (Jurnee Smollett) as they investigate two separate serial arsonists. The supporting cast includes Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Rafe Spall, Greg Kinnear, John Leguizamo, Anna Chlumsky, Hannah Emily Anderson, and Adina Porter. The first two episodes are now streaming on Apple TV+. Squid Game: Far be it from us to judge Netflix's decision to drop two seasons of its Emmy-winning drama just six months apart (though separate Emmy cycles, of course), but it does feel a bit like "too much of a good thing." Season 3, which also happens to be the South Korean drama's final season, follows Emmy winner Lee Jung-jae's Gi-hun as he attempts to stop the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and put an end to the deadly game at the heart of the series in the wake of his best friend's shocking death. All episodes are now streaming on Netflix. Ironheart: Marvel's latest series was years in the making, having been announced in late 2020 at a time when the MCU was growing mostly because Disney needed more content for its new streaming service. The six-episode series follows the minor character of Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), an engineering prodigy introduced in 2022's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as she lands back home in Chicago after her experiments get her expelled from MIT. In need of cash to fix the suit of armor she nicked on her way out, Riri teams up with a group of thieves, which goes about as well as you think it does. The first three episodes are now streaming on Disney+. Our top movie streaming pick this week is My Mom Jane, Mariska Hargitay's documentary about her mother, actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield. The film, which is Hargitay's directorial debut, premiered at Cannes and also screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. After a small theatrical run, it's now streaming on Max. The heartfelt and personal documentary follows Law & Order: SVU star Hargitay on a journey to better understand and feel close to her mother, whom Hargitay has no memory of, as she died in a car accident when Hargitay was 3. Through interviews with her older siblings and looking at Mansfield's archival materials, Hargitay gets a full portrait of her mother in all of her complexity, and explores how being Jayne Mansfield's daughter shaped her own life and career. If you're not into celebrity documentaries, here are some other new releases to watch this weekend on streaming or video on demand: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie: Here's a fairly surprising fact: this is the first fully animated, theatrically released Looney Tunes movie in the franchise's 95-year history. It's a rambunctious, gag-filled ode to classic Looney Tunes that finds Daffy Duck and Porky Pig teaming up to try to stop an alien invasion. The film was initially developed for Max, which dropped it during Zaslav's Purge of 2022, and now, ironically, is back on Max after all. : Danielle Deadwyler stars in this daylight ghost story that did better than expected in theaters earlier this year. The Bear Season 4 scene-stealer plays Ramona, a mother of two who is grieving the death of her husband in a car accident. One day, a mysterious woman, shrouded in black, appears in the front yard of their house. She sits there and says 'today's the day' in a spooky singsong voice. She's very menacing. No spoilers, but it's one of those horror movies that's very literal about giving a physical form to psychological conditions. Critics praised Deadwyler's performance, but felt the plot gets too complicated in the third act. Stream in on Peacock and decide for yourself. : This psychological horror indie is the directorial debut of Destry Allyn Spielberg, youngest biological daughter of Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. It's set in a post-apocalyptic America where a plague has wiped out most of the adult population, and follows a group of orphans who get taken in by one of the few remaining adults (Michelle Dockery). She turns out to be insane, and wants one of the teenage kids (Zoe Colletti) to become the daughter she lost. It's a tough situation for everyone. The film is streaming on Tubi. : An under-the-radar black comedy starring Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, I Don't Understand You finds the humor in an increasingly bad situation. The film follows Dom (Kroll) and Cole (Rannells) on an Italian vacation to celebrate their anniversary and accidentally kill an elderly woman. As they try to cover it up, they keep digging the hole deeper. The cast also includes The Gilded Age star Morgan Spurlock as the woman's son, and Amanda Seyfried as the mother of a baby Dom and Cole are planning to adopt. It's now available to rent or buy on VOD platforms including Amazon. The banger maker is back with her fourth album, Virgin, and critics are loving it so far! Listen now before all of pop music sounds like this in a year. Bruce Springsteen's sprawling Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set dropped this week to gushing reviews hailing it as a "treasure trove" of unreleased material. If you're a fan, your weekend plans are set. The erstwhile duo and early aughts indie-rock royalty, the White Stripes, are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Get Behind Me Satan and, as a part of the look back, have released a new video for their track "Red Rain." Best of Gold Derby Everything to know about 'The Batman 2': Returning cast, script finalized Cristin Milioti, Amanda Seyfried, Michelle Williams, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actress interviews Paul Giamatti, Stephen Graham, Cooper Koch, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actor interviews Click here to read the full article.
Irish Daily Star
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Star
I'm hooked on Apple TV+'s new crime drama despite problematic episode
Apple TV+'s latest crime drama commits what I perceive is the ultimate sin for a debut series, yet I find myself urging folks to give it a watch. Smoke has dropped its first two episodes, joining the ranks of Apple TV+'s high-end, original drama lineup that already includes titles like Your Friends and Neighbors, The Studio, Stick, Dope Thief, Murderbot, and Prime Target from earlier this year. That's quite the crowd of newbies vying for your screen time. As someone who critiques films and TV professionally, I get some early access to shows pre-release. So, just so you know, at the time of penning this, I've devoured the initial five episodes out of the nine-part season. Smoke is a slow burn until it gets going (Image: Apple) Keep in mind, three of those aren't even out for subscribers until July. This detail is key because if I had only seen the currently streaming premiere, I'd probably advise you to skip Smoke altogether. An early critique hailed Smoke as "nine great hours of television.", reports Wales Online . Here's the kicker: the critic must've binged the whole lot, because if they'd only seen the first couple of episodes, their tune might be different. Heads up, I'm about to share what goes down right at the start of Smoke. But hey, it might just convince you to fast-forward through the first 10 minutes or so. The series chronicles troubled detective Michelle Calderone, portrayed by Jurnee Smollett, who must join forces with arson expert Dave Gudsen, played by Taron Egerton, as they pursue two elusive serial arsonists. They find themselves enmeshed in a "twisted game of secrets and suspicions" as they delve into the crux of the frightening offenses. Drawing inspiration from real occurrences and the esteemed Firebug podcast, enthusiasts of the podcast will recognize where the narrative's critical turning point is headed. Launching a fresh series as it strives to carve out its characters, locale, concept, and convince viewers of its legitimacy is no small feat, encountering several pet peeves. Voiceover narration should be more than mere exhibition; it must authentically complement the visual storytelling, rather than indulging in pretentious reflections mirroring the show's theme. Another concern lies with erratic flashbacks; presenting past or future scenarios prior to identifying the temporal sequence can work effectively. However, juggling timelines incessantly risks obscuring the story's true genesis. Smoke plunges headfirst into these pitfalls. We're introduced to Taron Egerton's character amidst flames, ensnared within a burning structure, as his superfluous voiceover ruminates on conflagrations—and then, suddenly, he awakens! Similarly, when the series unveils our other lead, her background unfolds through sporadic, disjointed glimpses into the past. Despite the presence of these clichés, which is surprising given that the episode is written by seasoned scribe Dennis Lehane, I'd still urge most viewers to stick with it. We've arrived at one of the worst things a review could disclose to potential viewers: you'll need to endure the first two episodes before deciding if this show is your cup of tea. By the climactic scene of the second episode and its jaw-dropping plot twist, I've transitioned from wanting to throw in the towel to being hooked on what comes next. Taron Egerton in Smoke (Image: Apple) Starting from episode three, Egerton's fire investigator character evolves beyond just being an awful stepdad, revealing layers the show is gradually unmasking. Detective Calderone becomes intriguing when he's actually probing the central crime of the story rather than mulling over an affair, and I'm itching to uncover what's up with Ntare Mwine's Freddy Fasano. The series' weekly release schedule might pose a problem here, as it might be more enjoyable as a binge-watch. Smoke isn't the standout show of the year. It doesn't even top Apple's new series roster for 2025 (that honor goes to The Studio, in case you're curious), but I find myself irresistibly drawn to its intrigue, eager to see how it all wraps up and recommending it to anyone in search of a twist-filled crime drama. Smoke is streaming on Apple TV+.
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.
