Black Bird is a masterful exercise in psychological thriller and terror that will eat at your brain long after the pilot ends. Featuring an all time high performance from Paul Walter Hauser that should easily earn him and Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and possibly even a win. Taron Egerton also gives a performance that proves to us that he is a movie star capable of anything after he wowed us in Rocketman.
In this true crime story we learn about Jimmy Keene who is offered his freedom in a deal with the FBI to get confessions out of Larry Hall, the stories we see weaved out like strings of yarn are magnificent story telling from the beginning of the series all the way to the end. The first episode we mainly get the background on Jimmy and Larry, then in the second episode we see Jimmy Keene lean into his attempt to befriend Larry in prison.
Black Bird is the best psychological thriller series since Mindhunter landed on Netflix, it is a 6 part miniseries that is a doozy, unfortunately I can’t go into any spoilers here in this review but this series will give you panic attacks that will drive you nuts between Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser’s Jimmy and Larry brilliant dialogue.
One big surprise here is to see how committed Ray Liotta is as Jimmy Keene’s father and also seeing Greg Kinnear dominate the scenes that he is in is a welcome surprise after his brilliant comedic performance in the Starz series Shinning Vale. In the Black Bird is the first thriller series of 2022 that you can watch multiple times.
Overall Grade: 5/5 stars
