Ray Donovan

Great acting, writing and direction.

It's a muscular, instantly riveting series that features sensational performances by Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight. Based on the early episodes, we could be looking at television's next great character-based drama.

At heart, this is a show about good and evil, but sometimes the catch--for both the characters and the audience--is knowing which is which. You won't be able to stop watching.

[Creator and writer Ann Biderman has] created the most testosterone, rough and intelligent drama in ages.... Early sneaks of Ray Donovan hinted that Showtime might have a real gem on its hands, but four episodes provides an absolute exclamation point.

The show, stylishly shot and strongly written, throws a lot at the wall in the premiere.

Showtime’s taut and pretty terrific Ray Donovan.... Schreiber brings a solid, stolid presence to the role. But it’s Jon Voight as Mickey who gives this drama its ferocious, dangerous and sometimes creepy edge.

The result is something extraordinary and compelling, a first-rate drama for Showtime.

This could be the start of something great. In just a handful of episodes, it's already powerfully terrific.

[A] captivating series created by Ann Biderman--sharply written, sophisticated even at its most melodramatic, with first-class performances throughout.

It’s not as meticulous, cinematic, or original as those two shows ["Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad"], but it’s got the same kind of storytelling ambition. It’s the most vital new series of the year so far.

Ray Donovan is fun, but it’s also heart-breakingly sad and deadly serious, sometimes all at once. In all cases, this is one of the smartest series to come around in a while, sharply written (by creator and executive producer Ann Biderman) with a perfect balance of comedy and tragedy, action and reflection.

In Ray and Mickey, producer Ann Biderman has created two of TV's most interesting characters and one of its most absorbing dynamics.

A few caricatures stick out among the characters, but the subtler conceptions, on the page and in performance, win out.

Schreiber’s powerful portrayal of a man whose elemental rage is on a collision course with a rising moral consciousness is the driving engine of Ray Donovan. But it may not even be the show’s best performance.

Ray Donovan generates an authentic and convincing noir atmosphere, something rarely accomplished in the medium.

Voight is perfectly cast as the one person who can plausibly terrify Ray, and he and Schreiber have a crackling chemistry. The supporting players are terrific, too, starting with Paula Malcomson as Ray's wife, Abby.... But it's Schreiber, who manages to convey a lot while seemingly remaining impassive much of the time, who somehow holds Ray Donovan together.

Ray Donovan is undeniably derivative, but it sure is fun. Liev Schreiber leads a stellar cast as Ray Donovan.

Viewers may find it takes some concentration to sort out the lineup and the dramas here. The payoff is worth the investment.

Buoyed by a riveting supporting performance from Jon Voight, it’s a dense, highly organic world--at its best, playing like a present-day “Chinatown.” More often, it’s eminently entertaining, if not initially quite worthy of a spot alongside TV’s velvet-roped A-list.

Together with Jon Voight, who's thrillingly twisted as Ray's crazy ex-con father, Mickey, Schreiber helps save this show from becoming just another drama about sex scandals diverted and TMZ headlines deferred.

The show's large ensemble is mostly free of stereotypes, and nearly every narrative shift feels authentic and punctual.

The first four episodes supplied to critics are engaging, but especially in the aftermath of his passing, the shadow of James Gandolfini is, sadly, everywhere.

The show is more successful when the Donovans are interacting with rich or otherwise spoiled people than when they’re dealing with their own problems, because the problems, however sympathetically written and acted, are a potluck stew of elements you’ve seen in other stories about South Boston Irish-Americans.

There’s just enough crazy in Ray Donovan to keep things interesting.

In the end, don't much like Ray Donovan.... [But] Donovan ultimately succeeds on the little things--some very good performances by some very good actors and sharp dialogue by Biderman, who knows how to write Tough Guy talk with the best of them.

Though I do not begrudge Ray Donovan its sense of momentum or tension, I was immediately struck by a desire to simply see more of Ray doing his job for a few episodes rather than seeing him deal with his brothers’ various problems.

But after five episodes, Ray Donovan is still some good performances in search of a show. It feels made up of pieces of other antihero dramas--a little Sopranos here, a little Brotherhood there, even a little Entourage around the edges. Ray is so far too much a cipher to be an engaging focal character, and his flaws and failings are those of so many middle-aged cable ass-kickers in the past decade.

[Biderman’s writing and Schreiber’s acting are] a one-two punch that haven’t scored a knockout in the first round, but there’s still time.

There's enough strong raw material on hand that Ray Donovan could eventually be built into something great. Right now, though, it's raw material in search of a series.

There's something both frustrating and fascinating about the way Showtime's classy but surprisingly dull new drama Ray Donovan aspires to greatness.

Biderman’s work here is inexplicably lazy: South Boston natives are haunted or broken; L.A. natives are narcissistic airheads. Voight doesn’t so much chew the scenery as gnaw it.

The dreary, often predictable family story begins to suffocate the show as it gains ground over the first four episodes.... Ray Donovan benefits from strategic use of character actors in supporting roles.

The series exists within its own ugly system, mining the by now tired convention of the thoughtful thug--the same idea that was so brilliantly subverted by more ambitious series, such as “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad.”

The first few episodes of Ray Donovan are disappointing--grandiose, predictable and painfully slow.