There’s a rock-solid plot to this New York-set thriller about a college student’s shooting. It’s full of great performances that plunge you into the city’s myriad possibilities for good – and evil
Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the creators of Apple TV+’s new drama, City on Fire, have applied brutal but almost certainly correct methods to adapting their source material. They have ruthlessly carved out the thriller that was embedded in Garth Risk Hallberg’s self-indulgently baggy 2015 novel of the same name. They have also relocated the action from Christmas 1976 – eve of the New York blackout on 12 July 1977 and the festival of looting and arson that transpired – to 18 months after 9/11, the volatility of the 70s replaced by the jittery aftermath of the terrorist attack. I suspect this is because it is a time that Schwartz and Savage (best known for their work on Gossip Girl and The OC) knew better and felt more comfortable recreating. Or maybe it was cheaper and even Apple TV+ doesn’t have an unlimited budget.
Whatever the reason, it works well as the backdrop to a story that centres round the shooting of a college student in Central Park and gradually opens up to involve disparate characters from a cross-section of New York society. As detectives pursue leads on multiple suspects, it gives us an An Inspector Calls-on-steroids look at the interconnectedness of people and their actions.
Weiterlesen: TV and radio | The Guardian