American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez

All in all, American Sports Story makes Hernandez a fully-developed person. Here, he’s not a total monster but also not a total victim (of his upbringing, background, bad choices, or an American institution that didn’t look out for or protect him).

The key to making this work (even though 10 episodes are more than plenty) is Josh Rivera as Hernandez.

We appreciate the fact that American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez treats its story with respect and not as a tabloidy story ripe for outrageous dramatic scenes. That and the generally good performances make the first season of this new franchise worth watching.

“American Sports Story” is not a radical reinvention, either of its subject or the Murphy oeuvre. Instead, it’s a dramatized crash course in what athletic ability can and can’t transcend.

Zicherman et al don’t just fill in the blanks in Hernandez’s sexual identity; they make it central to his character, using his family’s suspicions as cover for a broader critique of the inherent homoeroticism of male sport. .... Like football itself, American Sports Story makes itself tough to watch. It makes you wish things had turned out differently for Hernandez.

The series doesn’t need to warble on for as long as it does, but what compels you to watch is Rivera.

Rivera captures the boyish charm and goofy charisma of Hernandez's public persona, while instilling his moments of doubt and impulsive rage with unsettling force. .... Sports Story is especially compelling when it focuses on the football-industrial complex itself — which it doesn’t do enough.

Devoid of stars but featuring a strong lead performance from Josh Rivera, it’s compulsively watchable and detailed, if—per Murphy tradition—about as subtle as a gridiron gang tackle.

The show does not get inside the mind of a killer. But it does paint a useful—albeit imperfect and sometimes hammy—picture of the places that the killer inhabited as he took a darker turn. American Sports Story inspires empathy for Hernandez without offering sympathy.

The series ultimately seems as cowed by the power of men and football as anyone else, shaking a head at worst practices, but letting their inevitability stand as immutable fact. American Sports Story is a worthwhile examination of a murderer’s motivations, but it could also have said something meaningful about all of ours.

While the overall look of “American Sports Story” is a bit bland and redundant (at least 30 percent of the shots are just various framings of Aaron’s face), it works hand-in-hand with a script blunt enough to bring up Junior Seau’s suicide and a settled lawsuit about concussions via conveniently timed news reports. “American Sports Story” may not be as formally or thematically ambitious as “American Crime Story,” but it gets its message across.

American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez is well-cast, carefully researched, and scrupulous in avoiding the temptation to sensationalize an already lurid case. But without a fresh angle to cast on the tale, or new insights to add to it, the show nevertheless struggles to shake the sense that it’s simply gawking at an infamous tragedy all over again.

Rivera does an admirable job of showing Hernandez’s many sides. Still, much of what is here is either a retread of previous documentaries or not compelling enough to merit a 10-episode miniseries.