T R U E D E T E C T I V E
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, Tory Kittles
Writer: Nic Pizzolatto
Director: Cary Fukunaga
8 Episodes
What a pleasure it is to watch Matthew McConaughey's sublime performance as Det. Rustin "Rust" Cohle. He's a lawman with a heavy past, which at times haunts him, and on other occasions plunges him so deeply into an investigation, that you will begin to question quite what the driving force is of such an extraordinary character. It's a testament to McConaughey's magnificent skills as an actor that his portrayal of an eminently disagreeable character comes across as so nuanced, so richly textured, so beautifully performed, that we're drawn into the gravitational pull of his on screen persona.
The two detectives’ discovery of one another plays like the tale of two totally committed actors. In many ways it is the same old story: the sleepy incumbent and his brilliant, new upstart partner causing monumental repercussions. We've all seen this sort of approach having been attempted before, and almost always disappointingly and badly. Where this sublime, exceptional series True Detective radically differs and shines is in the quite wonderful script letting us get to know Cohle and Hart intimately, while creating a story which fits their characters’ personalities, their strengths, their weaknesses, their motivations; perfectly. The pacing is excellent and gathers increased momentum with every gradual revelation of the characters and plot. True Detective has every right to the great praise it has garnered. McConaughey and Harrelson breathe such life into Nick Pizzolatto's wondrous script in a way that every director and producer in television and indeed film should take note of.
To summarise the series. In the 1990s, two detectives, Marty Hart and Rust Cohle (Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey), embark upon a hunt for a fetishistic murderer, the sort of bastard who tattoos his female victims, then accessorises them with antlers and scatters cultish twig sculptures at the crime scene. We then move to the present day, where these now ex-partners are questioned by two other cops, who suspect that the murders have begun again. The modern interviews become a voice-over, which is layered over flashbacks, and the contrast between words and images gradually reveal that less is in fact a great deal more.
Instead of an ensemble, “True Detective” has just two characters, the family-man adulterer Marty, a real and flawed individual maturing under Harrelson’s sensationally strong performance, and Rust, a sinewy weirdo with a tragic past, who delivers arias of philosophy, a mash-up of Nietzsche, Lovecraft, Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow and nihilist horror extractions. Initially these at-odds potential buddies are dialectic: when Rust rants, Marty rolls his eyes. Rust is a heretic with a heart of gold. He keeps digging when everyone else decides to ignore the truth, an action hero who rescues children in the midst of violent chaos, an outsider with painful secrets and harsh truths at his constant disposal. McConaughey gives a mesmerising performance, like a rubber band wrapped tightly around a razor blade. Throughout there is an ominous atmosphere, ripplingly psychedelic, but solipsistically focussed.
As this is an exceptional example of the momentous benchmark television film can reach (it was shot to cinema standard on celluloid and is visually delicious as a result) – I felt it essential to offer a review in the hope that if you missed it, you will purchase the blu-ray upon release and be captivated, as I was, by its profound brilliance.
