Burt Shulman

Very compelling show; what I find remarkable is that it's not even remotely credible -- full of ridiculous coincidences, criminal geniuses, bizarre interpretations of the job of the FBI, bad good guys and good bad guys, empathetic, loving, self-righteous sociopaths, and everyone with at least one smoking gun and dead body in their closet. Except, wait a minute...sounds like the Trump administration. Anyway, the acting is the great strength -- Spader, Boone, Arison, Tawfiq and, when they were regulars, Marno, Eggold, Straithairn, Alda, Blommaert. And some of the weekly criminals and recurring characters, like Clark Middleton and Lotte Verbeek.

Pacino's great -- his most recent performances are just really well-acted, the way he worked in the early days, without his later scenery-chewing. There are some great segments; but overall it's a little gimmicky, not ultimately cohesive, and eventually surrenders to comic-book plot twists and characters.

The best new movie I've seen in decades. It immediately went into my personal pantheon as one of the greats. I slip the noose of that statement with an acknowledgment that it's not possible to know how any art will play in 20, 30, 50 years. I can only safely say that on the day I saw it, in those hours, in that setting, its effect on me was as powerful, moving, and strangely hopeful, even for a film about despair, as any film I've seen in decades. That I was unable to sit in my seat through the next showing was kind of... painful.