Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders

The scripts, mostly written by L&O veteran Rene Balcer, do a nifty job of carving a clean narrative trail through the usual true-crime cloud of ephemera.

Despite the me-too-ism of it all, the result is a slick, impressively cast trip down memory lane, saddled with the unwieldy title Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders.

The story, like it did in early 1990s, grabs your attention. The actors are the reason it keeps it.

The series was created by Rene Balcer, whose writing staff does a very good job with the script to make it feel real, so much so that it may seem almost perfunctory. But that’s the point, really, and underscores the naturalism of the series. The performances are very solid overall. ... Falco, of course, is a standout.

Falco and her curls steal the show. They’re both are fascinating. The “true crime” part is much less so.

What results is an oddly watchable combination of “Law & Order” and “American Crime Story.” The Menendez Murders borrows so heavily from both, its only identity comes from a new true crime story (that younger viewers may not know the ending to) and Lesli Linka Glatter’s tense, observant direction.

The Menendez story is not as immediately consuming as the celebrated O.J. series, perhaps because there was no dramatic car chase or fallen-celebrity scenario to kick off the story. But with a solid cast and Falco in the lead, The Menendez Murders has the potential to dominate in an otherwise crowded field of true-crime dramas.

Falco is good, but Josh Charles is doing the stuff that made me smile. Of course, smiling is not something you’re supposed to be doing while watching a show about a double homicide, but the pleasures of familiar facts presented in a lively, engaging way will not be denied.

Rene Balcer's writing and Lesli Linka Glatter's direction keep things moving, and if these two episodes don't promise anything terribly deep, they're packed with enough good performances and details (an alibi conversation revolving around a supposed meeting at the Beverly Hills Cheesecake Factory, for instance) to make us curious about what comes next.

There were reasons, other than the character of the Menendez brothers themselves, for the enduring notoriety of this case, and we’re introduced to one of the major ones early in the series (just two episodes of which NBC released for review). She’s Leslie Abramson (Edie Falco), attorney for Erik Menendez.

Falco is fine in this role and Jaeger brings some nice touches to the role of detective Zoeller. Josh Charles (The Good Wife) adds a little extra marquee value as the brothers’ compromised psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Oziel. ... Just don’t expect any style points or departures from the straight ahead Wolf playbook.

At best, it's a glossier Criminal Intent. ... Still, [Erik's lawyer Leslie Abramson (Edie Falco)] is barely a footnote in the first two eps, as the writers struggle to weave her into the early investigations. [29 Sep, 2017, p.54]

The Menendez Murders lacks the multiple social themes of “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” settling instead for an occasionally pulpy story that takes a turn into purple prose when it begins to explore the role of Erik’s therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel (Josh Charles). ... The presence of Ms. Falco, whose character gets a husband (Chris Bauer) and workaholic back story, elevates the proceedings, but she appears sparingly in the premiere.

Ultimately, with a sensational story and a strong lawyer championing her cause, there's plenty here to sustain Law & Order fans. Even if they already know how this trial ends.

I enjoyed [the first two episodes] in the same way I once enjoyed the original “Law & Order,” as an entertaining but not challenging way to pass some time. Also, amid all the workmanlike performances, Edie Falco is captivating as Leslie Abramson, the defense attorney with trademark blond curls, and Josh Charles is effectively creepy as the morally abhorrent therapist Dr. Jerome Oziel. But The Menendez Murders has very little of the breadth and context that distinguished “American Crime Story.”

Of the two episodes presented to critics, the first is markedly better. ... Every actor, from Falco to supporting players Reaser and Edwards, seems to be relishing the chance to ham it up a little, and at least in that arena, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders delivers admirably. ... There is a covenant of trust with the viewer to present a case impartially, and by the second episode, that trust has mostly evaporated.

A promising premiere gives way to a duller second episode that forgets its pulpy nature, becoming the TV equivalent of a patrolman’s beat. There’s enough here to warrant further investigation, though, including a great cast led by Edie Falco.

The verdict is still out after the first two chapters, which merely seem guilty of dramatic exploitation. [2-15 Oct 2017, p.15]

All of this is very watchable, as with all Law & Order, but not without coating the viewer in a little true slime. ... The Menendez Murders, in comparison, simply feels like the most high-profile case that Dick Wolf, the Law & Order impresario, could grab the rights to.

The most successful shows of the current true-crime boom do more than just lay out the facts, but there isn’t much indication that True Crime will be more than a competently produced eight-part Law & Order episode.

Showrunner Rene Balcer, who previously drew inspiration from the Menendez murders to write a 1991 “Law & Order” episode, steers his writers to take the same dry approach here as he did sixteen years ago, walking us through the particulars of the tale with all the spark of a burned out docent on her last museum tour of the day.

The first installment of the eight-episode drama, which airs Tuesday night on NBC, is murder-reenactment-by-the-numbers, complete with black-and-white flashbacks, an oppressively ominous and omnipresent score, and a script that continually feels the need to point out the patently obvious.

It only offers up a paint-by-numbers approach to rehashing of the touchstones of a well-known case rather than delving deeper into the lifestyle of the brothers and those around them, something beyond the character cameos of a typical Law & Order episode.

Falco is so much better than the rest of the cast that the show quickly splits itself into terrific scenes that she is in vs. ho-hum scenes that she is not. ... What you have here is a drawn-out period piece about a period and an event that aren’t worth remembering.

They play like an old-school Law & Order episode elongated well past the point of interest, without any of the nuance or larger sociological implications that justified Murphy and friends devoting so much time to the O.J. Simpson trial.

It’s more mechanical and less thoughtful, lacking a larger curiosity. Its first two plodding episodes play like the opening acts of a way-too-extended episode of the original “Law & Order.”

There’s nothing stylish or even particularly inventive about the direction, or for that matter the dialogue, the photography, or the editing. In fact, nothing feels entirely right here: not the structure, which shoehorns brief expository flashbacks into the timeline for no clear reason; not the look, a desaturated, blue-gray palette characteristic of clichéd, East Coast–based TV crime thrillers; not the script or its presentation, which fail to exploit elements of black comedy and social satire that are so innate to the tale that they seem to lunge at the camera, crying, “Notice me! Do something with me!”