Lawmen: Bass Reeves

While Lawmen: Bass Reeves could use a little of the whiz-bang that genre TV shows like Timeless have brought to the pulp-fiction version of Reeves, Oyelowo does add a revealing gravity to his take.

At times, it threatens to tip Lawmen into humourless pastiche – particularly given that the script generally hews to a terse tradition (“He died brave.” “He lived brave”). But the rare point of view and the care taken with the story, to say nothing of its basis in real-life achievements, save it.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves is an old school western designed to appeal to those who want an uncomplicated, not too preachy, morally sound story of good cops and bad robbers that could have been made largely the same way 10 years ago.

While it occasionally falls into the trappings well-worn by the Sheridan Industrial Complex, “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” is like a thrilling throwback to the Western adventures of old, centering one of American history’s most lauded Black heroes.

As an introduction, “Bass Reeves” makes the convincing argument that the Western can expand without a total reimagining.

When it comes to connecting with the viewer at a purely visceral level, the Sheridanverse shoots from the hip and rarely misses.

Despite riding on the coattails of Sheridan’s other western shows, Lawmen: Bass Reeves promisingly emerges as a compelling series that needs no help to stand on its own.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves benefits from a sturdy performance by David Oyelowo at its center, effectively strikes the balance between tough talk, gunplay, and sentiment typical of a Tyler Sherdian production, and offers some perspective on a formative era of US history.

A sturdy, moralistic, traditionalist's western, in which a conflicted hero guns his way through an entire population of frontier felons.

The first two episodes move at a brisk enough pace and have a few shocking, gory turns as “Lawmen” depicts battles and shootouts with fatal head wounds galore. As a balance to that, Oyelowo brings a decency to Bass and a sweetness to the relationship between Bass and his wife, Jennie (Lauren E. Banks).

"Bass Reeves” kicks off what Paramount clearly hopes will be an ongoing franchise with a solid if unspectacular opening salvo, without fully doing justice to its intriguing subject. The real test, frankly, will come when “Lawmen” tries to reload.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves isn't concerned with the morally gray, preferring a binary history of black and white in a world before complexity was invented. Given his legend, we're owed a good Bass Reeves show; this just isn't it.

An oddly disjointed series with very little voice or perspective, Lawmen: Bass Reeves benefits tremendously from David Oyelowo‘s central performance and from Sheridan’s impressive ability to attract high-profile guest stars for underwritten non-roles.

Ultimately, ‘Bass Reeves’ feels like an overly reverent and respectful show meant to honor this Western figure and do his legend right rather than tell morally complex stories. And hell, we’d settle for some engaging drama, entertaining shoot-outs, or something, but that would be asking too much of this cheerlessly well-behaved and loyal-to-its-character series.

“Bass Reeves” is far too formulaic, too rushed, and too incurious to be propped up MCU-style by cameos.