Billions (s.04, 2019)
In the 4th season of Billions the story is divided into to narratives that sometimes intersect and influence each other a little bit, but ultimately are independent. The first is about the mortal feud between Axe and Taylor after the latter successfully opened their own shop. The second is about Chuck getting back into office – this time, of Attorney General for the state of New York, – and struggling with Jock Jeffcoat, Attorney General of the United States, for survival, in which fight Bryan Connerty did all he could to nail his former boss. The war of the funds was brutal and incurred heavy losses on both sides. At its first stage, it was centered on the oil fracking; later – on the piece of technology developed by the company of Taylor’s father (and partially financed by Taylor); then shifted to the pet project of Bobby’s girlfriend, a power lady named Rebecca Cantu, who dreamed her whole life to own the Saler’s, manufacturer of several food brands that acquired a cult status. An important part of this line is Wendy’s misfortune: instead of keeping to her standards of impartiality, she went into the battle on Axe’s side, and used her influence to impact Taylor’s decisions and in order to throw them off their game – behavior later reported to the medical board, which brought forward a very real possibility of Wendy loosing her license. While that was happening, Chuck managed to get elected Attorney General – and that is despite the huge scandal that broke out when he got blackmailed with his sexual life and did not comply with the blackmailer, coming clean publicly instead. That brought him a lot of points in his position, but heart his relationship with his wife – over the course of the season it would be healing only to get ruptured again by some other deed, with general tendency of deterioration. Professionally, Chuck was preoccupied most of the time with scheming against Bryan, who even managed to get wiretapping on him.
Except for one thing, the story is interesting, full of powerful twists and turns, internally consistent and overwhelmingly entertaining. The Chuck’s part is basically one giant and very intricate scheme, with the finale playing the role of a key unlocking the reality. The Axe’s part contains several truly brutal, personality-crippling moments, which were absolutely breathtaking to observe. Wendy’s marriage falling apart gradually is a separate delight. The arrangement of the stories seems harmonious enough – at least, it doesn’t arouse my feeling of fake at all. The only thing I didn’t quite like was inherited from the previous season – I’m talking about this strange quasi-friendship between Chuck and Axe: it kind of dabbled there with no particular purpose, except of an occasional favor (and that is kind of an overkill), and it was obvious that the writer also don’t really know what to do with it, until they found a solution and started doing, a few episodes before the finale, the groundwork for the next season – which, in and of itself, promises to be good. That tiny drawback, however, doesn’t have a lot of impact on the overall result, – it gets trumped by any of the mind-boggling moments of the season, and they were a few.
The execution is not much to talk about: it’s hardly any different from previous seasons, meaning, it’s a highly professional work with all the elements perfectly adapted to fit with each other. The acting is, of course, a particularly impressive element – the story allowed, and the cast managed, to perform with utmost power.
All in all, slightly damaged by season 3 finale, in season 4 the show rectified itself with magnificent persuasiveness, and could be called without a doubt one of the most interesting and most potent dramas currently running. Highly recommended.
Billions (s.03, 2018)
In the 3rd season of Billions the situation changes drastically, as does the very essence of things. Connerty, one of Chuck’s closest associates, gets temporarily transferred to the Eastern to help out Dake with his investigation against Axelrode, who is still under investigation. On that new position, Connerty starts pursuing another target in parallel – Chuck himself, whom he now considers an embodiment of evil. With time his passionate hatred of Chuck takes over and he launches a direct assault on his former boss. That compels Chuck to unite forces with Axelrode, for now they have a common enemy. This all happens against the background story about a new AG who got a very different approach to things. In the meantime, Axe Cap experiences some trouble on account of company accounts being frozen. To resume the operation Bobby even has to take some very unpleasant steps; the most significant of which is, of course, withdrawal from operational activity. Taylor, whom he made CIO, proved to be a great leader in the critical times, so when at a certain point the charges against Bobby were dropped and he came back triumphant, Taylor wasn’t too happy about going back to his old functions. Especially because it’s mostly because of them that Axe managed to land a whale – a Russian billionaire Grigor Andolov. Soon the time for yearly bonuses came, and everybody thought it would be a good idea to promote Taylor to an actual partner, but Bobby took too much time thinking about it, and the worst happened, and a friend turned to foe. The last few episodes of the season are concentrated on these Axe’s troubles on the one hand, and on the Chuck’s move against the AG, whom he found a little too authoritarian. After Chuck decided not to pursue political career, he discovered that AG’s grip on his business is a bit too tight, and launched a full-fledged operation against him.
I don’t know, you know. The show feels different. This is no longer about the exhaustible war-like conflict between a New York City district attorney and a mighty billionaire, even though both of them are still among the main characters. But instead of that there is now nothing. No cut-through theme. Chuck is no longer about the triumph of the justice against all odds, and I don’t quite understand if he realizes that about himself or is still delusional, like what he did to the doctor suggests. He is now a career-builder, a schemer, who got so comfortable in the murky waters of the law system he decided to go for the top, although I’m not sure what would that ‘top’ in his case be. As for the Bobby: he gets distracted by other stuff and gradually looses his passion about Chuck; later he learns that working with him may not be that bad, and thus goes the possibility of collaboration.
But if with Bobby it has always been possible, Chuck of the first two seasons was way too unrelenting to allow things come to that, and even they would, his decisions, I believe, would’ve been different. It seems to me that the authors of the seasons really wanted for the two of them – Bobby and Chuck – to come together in some capacity, and so they distorted the storyline they had in a way to make it go through specific points. This is a normal thing, actually, everybody’s doing all the time, but the problem here is that the distortion is too crude, too obvious, and can be felt, even if without realization of the feeling’s origin, by pretty much everybody.
Also, I really respect John Malkovich as an actor, but this Andolov is not a Russian. His name is not Russian; his story is ridiculous; the primary purpose of the character is to instigate the conflict between Axe and Taylor – and unfortunately these threads that usually stay on the seamy side of the story, in this case are right there in the open, which is extremely sloppy and lousy.
The execution is, of course, as great as could be expected from a major TV show these days. There is some action, certainly a lot of stuff to enjoy, all of magnificent quality. It’s only the problems with the story that won’t allow me to consider the 3rd installment of the show a perfect success. It stopped evolving naturally and started moving forward forced by the will of Brian Koppelman and David Levien. And this is an alarm bell of sorts – I strongly suspect that the following season would be an interesting specimen in terms of internal quality range.
Billions (s.02, 2017)
In the second season of Billions the war between Chuck Rhoades, the US attorney for the Southern District of NYC, and Bobby Axelrode, the head of the mightiest hedge-fund in all the Americas, changes to a more discrete form. At the beginning of the season Wendy is no longer employed by Axe Capital, she has her own shop and considers a different company to work with; – so Bobby comes up with an intricate intrigue to get her back, which involves suing Chuck about nearly everything he has ever done. That goes as a supporting storyline, while on the forefront there are silent battles of immense scale. First, Chuck’s father finds out by accident about increased interest of some investors, including those from Axe, to a certain town upstate; he manages to figure out what this is about, and then uses his connections to kick Bobby right in the balls – the gaming license was assigned to a different town. This becomes a heavy blow for Axelrode, painful enough to dig into it – eventually he grasps the connection, and starts preparing a counter blow. Which becomes centered around the company Ice Juice: Chuck finds out that the company will be going public very soon, and that it’s a chance to get rich quick. He brings it to his father, as a thank you for him hitting Axelrode, and he invests heavily. Bobby discovers that before the IPO, and takes measures to influence it – thus goes the struggle. At some point Bobby’s wife temporarily breaks up with him because of a lie – this becomes a crucial point in their relationship that becomes uncertain and unbalanced from then on. Finally, and maybe more importantly, too: over the course of the season the rise of a brand new mighty figure happens. Taylor Mason entered the scene in the role of Mafee’s analyst, and immediately impressed the hell out of Bobby – so much so, Taylor (who is a non-binary, with pronoun they) quickly becomes the member of the inner circle, and even an heir to the throne.
This latter storyline I love the most, and not just because this is the first ever non-binary character I have ever seen, but also because Asia Kate Dillon is a totally amazing performer, and Taylor is one of the most delicious characters I’ve seen in a long time.
I also loved how the struggle between the parties went underground – never ceased, but turned in a hidden activity that only occasionally impacts the evident reality creating movements that seem random if taken without context. I absolutely adore the idea of tampering with the mechanism of social universe so delicately that only certain, predefined things get broken in exactly the right moments; it is not just attractive in and of itself (because is based on the idea of complexity), but also implies that, first, it is indeed a mechanism, which, second, no matter how complicated can be and is known to some individuals, and that their knowledge can probably never be complete, even though it may seem so from time to time. Further more, I believe, that the complex intrigue the writers came up with illustrate all that is magnificent – very well thought-through and amazingly written.
And the personal relationships between the characters, although never take over the narrative, remain an important part of it nonetheless. As far as I can tell, the season with all its multiple components is harmonious and balanced.
The execution is, unsurprisingly, wonderful. The acting is particularly great, with Giamatti and Lewis acting opposite each other in a few more very intense scenes; of course, that is only a tiny part of the body of acting work that is above medium at the very least, and great most of the time.
I enjoyed the show quite a lot. Hopefully, the 3rd season would be just as fun. So far so good.
Billions (s.01, 2016)
Billions is a drama about the mighty struggle between Bobby Axelrode, a billionaire and a head of one of the the largest investment companies in the country, and Chuck Rhoades, attorney for the Southern District of New York. For the longest time Axe was out of reach of any of the interested authorities on account of his extensive network of connections, amazing social skills, insanely deep pockets and smarts. And for many years a delicate balance has been preserved, with Wendy Rhoades, Chuck’s wife and Bobby’s employee, being exactly in between the two of them. But now, driven by the ambition (which is also based on acute sense of justice) on the one hand, and pressure from his peers on the other, Chuck in not only willing, but actively seeking to catch Axelrode on something, and so the war begins. A strike of blind luck allows Chuck to start looking into Axe’s activities, when some of the remotely connected investment figures got under his radar; to distract him Bobby sinks one of his competitors, Steven Birch, and plants a mole in the DA’s office. One of Chuck’s colleagues manages to expose the mole; and later targets one of Bobby’s close associates, ‘Dollar’ Bill, about his questionable deal with Pepsum company. Some damage gets done, but Bill eventually goes free. Nevertheless, the DA’s office still has quite a lot on Axe’s activity, so that, contrary to his nature, he agrees to make a deal: on top of a fine of $1.9 billion (the largest ever), he must agree not to work with investor’s money anymore, but Chuck, looking for a fight, changes his mind in the last minute. But things don’t took too good for him, and last of all, in the heat of the struggle, he does something he shouldn’t – he uses his wife, without her knowing, to extract valuable information that he would’ve never gotten otherwise… At the same time, a wife of one of Bobby’s former partners writes memoirs, one chapter of which (dedicated to the 9/11) may hurt Axelrode badly, and so his wife helps to deal with the situation, but then the removed chapter gets leaked, and Axe’s company suffers greatly – but not so bad as to undo it entirely. Also, in the 1st season, Axe buys his way into the company YumTime and improves the taste of their product; takes his friends to the Metallica concert in Quebec; and puts his name on the NYC skyscraper.
As much as the description above is awkward and incomplete, one thing you should take from there is that it’s about the struggle between two utterly different but equally powerful personalities, and that it is absolutely fascinating. The relationship between the two entities (because they both are so huge they practically become much more than people) gets increasingly heated over the course of the season, and it is a mesmerizing spectacle of power. Wendy, equally invested in both parties, is also brilliant, and watching her reacting to various stimuli coming from all over, is a particularly delightful part of the narrative. The position of Chuck and Bobby are pretty much opposite in everything, but they both are equally wonderfully substantiated – the writing here is mindbogglingly powerful.
To be honest, I am kind of intimidated by the vastness of the characters, their success, and by the enormous sums of money they deal with. This is, perhaps, the least attractive thing about this show – it made me feel like a complete looser, although it is, of course, completely subjective.
But I totally love the story. It basically breathes strength and might, so much so, it could actually energize you. But that’s not certain. What is, though, is that the story is well-devised and wonderfully written. The writers aren’t afraid of making hard decisions, and don’t tend to stick to good storylines if that would mean betraying the spirit of realism. They manage to keep the narrative balanced and everchanging at the same time – it a complex and delicate work, and they handle it perfectly. Like I already mentioned, the characters, the secondary ones as well as the main, are truly a thing of beauty. The dialogs, the situations, etc. are written with amazing mastery.
The execution is flawless, exactly as one could expect from a high-profile dramatic show these days. Everything technical is perfectly done not to stand in the way of the story, but to help and maintain it. The acting is striking, in every meaning of the word.
From the beginning and to the end of the season the show is a delicious treat, full of wonders and power. I enjoyed it tremendously, and hope the subsequent developments won’t betray my expectations. So far – highly recommended.
Charlie Wilson’s War (Mike Nichols, 2007)
Charlie Wilson’s War is a dramatic panegyric to the congressman Charlie Wilson, who played a key role in the US covert opposition to soviet aggression in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He was one of the first to realize the significance of the Afghan war, and to adequately appreciate the range of opportunities it presented. By way of shuttle diplomacy he managed to bring together such different parties as the Pakistani government, that of Saudi Arabia, democratic Senate and republican president’s administration of the US, as well as competent and relevant people in CIA; he was solely responsible for increasing the covert operations budget 20 times of the original size. His continuous efforts became one of the factors, the sum of which eventually brought down the soviet empire.
Generally speaking, this is a pretty good film. For one thing, it shows beautifully how shuttle diplomacy actually works, and on a real-life example, too. The second and, probably, the most important thing that makes this movie really worthwhile is its finale, where it is clearly stipulated that notwithstanding all the enormous resources the americans contributed into the affair they still failed to foresee the consequences of their decisions, not to mention countervailing them. In addition, Sorkin and Nichols offer a solution for this problem, which is investing into the civil stuff, like building of hospitals and schools, – a rather important message for all the politicians with grand schemes on their minds. For the whole duration of the movie I was wondering whether this aspect would be addressed, and I find the fact that it indeed was quite refreshing. It is very important to be honest about your own faults, for it is the only way to improve one’s ways.
That being said, there is at least one thing the film presents falsely, which harms its credibility quite badly. The Soviet Union and, correspondingly, the Russians are shown in the story as agents of pure chaos, or even evil. I am least of all inclined to justify the actions of the soviet state, but the kind of downright demonization exercised by the creators of the film has very little to do with actual reality – it’s a propaganda, not a truthful account of events. This attempt at overcoloring the enemy is understandable but wrong; adjacent emotional manipulation (specifically, the american’s visit to the refugee camp) coupled with this exaggeration is the main reason this film is not perceived correctly by many people, including the majority of present-day Russians. Which is a huge omission for the director, because otherwise the film is rather feasible.
The execution is quite great – the film gives no reasons to question the professional level of the director, nor any of the members of his crew. The acting is wonderful, especially work of Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
All in all, it’s a decent spectacle, although not without blunders.
A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
A Few Good Men is a drama at the turn of legal and military worlds. It follows the story of several young military lawyers charged with the task of defending 2 soldiers accused of murdering a 3d one. Although the paths they walk are very different ones, they managed to overcome that and synchronize their scintillation, and with the force of it – to break the case down.
To tell the truth, this film feels like all-time american classics right after the first seeing: the story is constructed in a very serious manner and produces an impression of monolith; the cast is amazing, and they all perfrom brilliantly, too, including Tom Cruise who sometimes plays shitty roles in shitty movies for large sums of money. The dialogs are subtle and elegant, the ending is alloyed with a intricate twist, – Sorkin did a pretty good job on this one.
Because the script was adapted from a play, majority of scenes happen indoors, which drops on everything a sort of theatrical shadow, – not that it’s a drawback, of course, it’s more like a smack not everybody would appreciate. I like it, though.
As I do the movie in general. Totally worth the time.
The Newsroom (s.03)
Although acting, direction, etc. remained exactly the same amount of great as in both seasons before, this time I have 2 complaints, one of which is that Sorkin’s efforts to escalate the story by adding classified documents leak, and also his efforts to wrap things up, were not concealed very skillfully; neither of those things are actually bad, but they have to be hidden better, and it’s sad that Sorkin was not careful enough about it. It also had a direct result in the form of sporadic outbursts of pathos that happen from time to time during the season – they were rather mild (and extremely well written), but still could have been avoided and weren’t.
The second complaint is that the show’s finale looks to good to be true, from all angles, even considering Charlie’s lot. It felt like all the pieces came to their rightful places, like the puzzle finally got put together, like the cervical vertebra clicked and there’s no pain anymore. I cannot agree more: the sight of good people becoming happy is a rewarding one, as well as the sight of bad people coming through, but it also is not very realistic, is it? At least, not with so many instances happening one after another in a row – it’s just unlikely. I admire Aaron Sorkin, not in the least because he is an amazing schemer, and is capable of constructing a perfectly healthy and complex story any day of the week (another way of looking at Charlie’s death is that without him disappearing Mac could not have been promoted, and the story would not have been that pretty in the end), it’s just this time he got kinda sloppy with bringing up decent front.
Having said that, I must admit that I love this show anyway, – it’s still wonderfully written, directed and played, and those little imperfections in the end are actually not that bad.
The Newsroom (s.02)
I wish I rated 1st season less than I actually did, – not because my opinion about it changed in any way, it’s just 2nd season is even better, and I can’t go any higher than “5+”.
On the outside, story for season 2 is different from the previous season’s story because all the episodes are engineered with a common idea in mind, and built around the Genoa disaster, – this plot, so to say, is like an additional superstructure that is wrapped around the collection of different storylines and characters. At that, just like before, there is absolutely nothing weak about any of the show’s components – not a single line, not a single word, not a single solution. Sorkin’s writing is overpowering, flawless, which, by the way, is kinda intimidating (and the less viewer is smart, the more he would feel this way), so this might be perceived as a drawback of sorts – at least, from a certain point of view. But, of course, whether it is a shortcoming or not is highly dependable on the author’s intentions, and I really doubt that a guy like Sorking can allow anything random in his story, so I have to assume that he hit exactly what he was aiming at. Internal signs of the wind change might be that the number of Sorkin’s co-authors raised significantly, although he still wrote most of the stuff.
(spoiler alert) The proposal at the end is freaking brilliant, from all sides. But, of course, there are a lot of powerful moments though-out the season. This one is just the strongest. And it seems like I’m running out of high-praise descriptive words.
The Newsroom (s.01)
Overwhelmingly smart series. The writing is absolutely brilliant in respect of both dialogs and story structure, and it’s a little intimidating, at least for the first couple of episodes, at least for me. People just talk very fast most of the time, and it can be staggering, kinda. The story, in short, is about high-quality journalism and sacrifices it requires; the subject in itself is a source of pathos, which manifests itself from time to time, but it is also obvious, that Sorkin truly believes in everything he writes on the matter, that his attitude is undoubtedly genuine. Some of the storylines follow personal lives of the characters presenting several types of conflict structures, including deep and hurtful past between Will and MacKenzie that stretches into the present, and the disturbance produced by Maggie.
There is nothing about this show that can be characterized as uninteresting, but it was especially captivating to watch the conflict between professionalism and the big money flaring up – on examples like this it can be studied how the system works, what safety mechanizms does it have, how it copes with various risks in general; and it feels nice to know that notwithstanding definite dangers, it still can operate, and does so.
About every detail of the show, like acting, direction, camerawork, etc. is flawless. After this fisrt season, I can say it was pure joy – smart, challenging, interesting, – in other words, exactly what I like.
Cinegmatic 
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