Tracking a killer
HBO debuts crime docuseries ‘I’ll Be Gone in the Dark’
Nonfiction series have evolved significantly since the 1980s heyday of “Unsolved Mysteries.” Nowadays they’re usually ongoing stories often rooted in true crime.
HBO’s “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” (10 p.m. Sunday) represents this new style of real-life storytelling popularized by HBO’s “The Jinx” and Netflix’s “Making a Murderer.” HBO’s new series debuts the same week Netflix reboots a reformatted “Unsolved Mysteries.”
‘I’ll Be Gone in the Dark’
Two sets of viewers will be drawn to this six-part docuseries, but it may prove more engrossing for one group.
Based on the Michelle McNamara book of the same name that follows her investigation into the criminal she calls the Golden State Killer, it’s easy to imagine true crime buffs flocking to “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.”
But the show’s appeal is largely dependent on being invested in McNamara’s story — she died of an accidental drug overdose in 2016 before completing the book — which is less interesting than the case she studied and the powerful stories of the victims she interviewed.
For the uninitiated, it will feel like “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” keeps bringing McNamara into the foreground for seeming tangents — about her upbringing, how investigating for the book takes precedence over making Thanksgiving dinner — that distract from the show’s best material, deeply personal interviews with the survivors of murder attempts and rapes by the Golden State Killer, originally called the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker before two geographically isolated crime sprees were traced to a single perpetrator.
“She wasn’t a big me, me, me person,” McNamara’s editor says. “She was much more interested in talking about other people than herself.”
“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” fails to follow the author’s lead, particularly in early episodes, which suffer from excessive use of scenes of people typing searches into Google and voiceover work by actress Amy Ryan reading from “I’ll Be Gone in the Night” as McNamara.
Frustratingly, this docuseries feels drawn out and too long for its own good even as it skips over fascinating details from the cases it chronicles in favor of more McNamara, who was married to comedian/actor Patton Oswalt. (The Los Angeles Times podcast “Man in the Window” may be a better option for true crime fans interested in the GSK case.)
In episode three, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” begins to foreshadow McNamara’s death as she talks of anxiety and stress from writing the book — “plus I have drugs,” she adds — and here her dramatic arc becomes more relevant. If the series was condensed, it might hold together better.
Filmmaker Liz Garbus (“The Fourth Estate”) handles the stories of the Golden State Killer’s surviving victims with sensitivity as they share harrowing memories and describe the impact of their experiences. The story of a few citizen investigators, like McNamara, are included but get short shrift and could make for a fascinating series on their own.
“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” opens some doors and then never fully explores the implications of McNamara walking through them: The police give her 57 boxes of documents from the then-unsolved investigation. Were these originals? If so, isn’t that a chain of custody problem? And its attempts at metaphor (a scene from “Creature From the Black Lagoon”) get recycled too many times along with strained efforts to draw parallels between McNamara and GSK’s victims.
‘Unsolved Mysteries’
Given the interest in nonfiction crime stories, rebooting this 1980s NBC stalwart makes sense. But changing the format from four stories per 45-minute episode (after commercials) to a single topic for upward of 50 commercial-free minutes turns out to be a bad idea.
Bloated and still inconclusive, the new “Unsolved Mysteries” benefits from Netflix’s usual high production values for nonfiction programming, but there’s no reason for these episodes to drone on as they do; there’s not enough story to support their running time.
Debuting on Netflix on Wednesday, this new “Unsolved Mysteries” retains the original’s theme song and title font but eschews a host. (The original’s host, Robert Stack, died in 2003.)
The first almost hourlong episode, about a Baltimore man’s disappearance, would have been better at a compact 35 minutes. The second, about a mother’s disappearance, doesn’t even deserve a half-hour, devolving after 20 minutes into “Maury”-style recriminations between the missing woman’s son and widower.
‘Irresistible’ debuts
One of the earliest films to shift from theaters to an athome, video-on-demand premiere, Warner Bros.’ well-reviewed Scooby-Doo animated comedy “Scoob” premieres on streamer HBO Max on Friday and gets released for purchase on DVD ($28.98), Blu-ray ($35.99) and 4K UHD combo pack ($44.95) on July 21.
While many theatrical film releases have been pushed back, others are opening at drive-ins while simultaneously premiering for at-home viewing, including military thriller “The Outpost” (July 3 via VOD) and Andy Samberg rom-com “Palm Springs” (July 10 on Hulu). This week ViacomCBS announced the newest “SpongeBob SquarePants” movie, previously set to debut in August, will bypass theaters for a 2021 release on premium VOD and CBS All Access.
Then there’s “Irresistible,” the latest film directed by Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show”), which on Friday will go directly to video-on-demand platforms (rent it at Xfinity, Prime Video, Fandango Now) as well as a few theaters, including Waterworks Cinemas near Aspinwall.
Rated R mostly for language, “Irresistible” stars Steve Carell as Gary, a Democratic political strategist who, after the results of the 2016 presidential election, finds what he considers a “new kind of Democrat,” heartland hero Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper). Gary persuades Jack to run for mayor of his small Wisconsin town.
“He’s the real deal,” Gary effuses. “Like Bill Clinton with impulse control, like a church-going Bernie Sanders with better bone density.”
Much of the film’s humor is rooted in Gary as a Washington elitist stereotype even as “Irresistible” wants viewers to root for Jack over the current mayor, who gains backing from a viper-like Republican strategist (Rose Byrne).
Sure to get four red roses from left Twitter — Stewart fills the film and its end credits with commentary about the corrosive power of money in politics — “Irresistible” sometimes strains with the obvious jokes it hangs around Gary’s persona, but the movie also delivers its share of surprises and proves far funnier than Carell’s disappointing Netflix misfire “Space Force.”