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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
30
Mixed:
2
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Aug 17, 2015
Season 1 Review:
It's like a procedural drama, about the drama of procedure--it isn't ever dry. There are some superbly mounted, loud, crowded big scenes--Simon is a great orchestrator of chaos --but there is an intensity to the quieter, more private moments as well. I wouldn't trade it for a bushel barrel of tortured detectives or all the kings and queens in Westeros.
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Aug 14, 2015
Season 1 Review:
It’s brilliant. HBO’s Show Me a Hero is a subtle and deeply effective melding of art and conscience; from its writing and narrative pace to its outstanding performances (particularly that of its star, Oscar Isaac) the miniseries locates a seldom-found sweet spot between storytelling and moralism.
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RogerEbert.comAug 13, 2015
Season 1 Review:
HBO’s Show Me a Hero is the TV event of the Summer, a mini-series that plays like a great American novel or a lost Sidney Lumet movie. Over six hours, writer/creator David Simon and director Paul Haggis craft a piece dense with political machinations that somehow never loses its focus on the people who get caught up in the web of public policy decisions and the people who make them.
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Aug 13, 2015
Aug 20, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Not only does Show Me a Hero deal with the same type of intricate institutional power struggles of city government--this time in 1987 in Yonkers, NY, where a battle over the desegregation of low-income housing is waged with newly elected mayor Nick Wasicsko (Oscar Isaac) caught in the crossfire--but it does it with the kind of nuanced, ensemble-driven, character-based stories that made The Wire one of the most acclaimed television series of all time.
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Aug 12, 2015
Season 1 Review:
A timely, nuanced look at class and race through the prism of events that transpired more than a quarter-century ago, Show Me a Hero is a sobering, spare and meticulously crafted HBO miniseries.... The performances are uniformly strong, although Isaac’s is particularly interesting as almost a primer on the psychology of politics, and how much Wasicsko’s identity is derived from his desperate thirst for validation from voters.
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Aug 14, 2015
Season 1 Review:
An absorbing drama.... To the extent that Show Me a Hero is flawed, the problem lies not in Simon's dramaturgy but his journalistic instincts. Show Me a Hero is but a single snapshot of a lumbering crisis that unfolded over a period of nearly three decades, and while the show's narrative is painstakingly accurate within its timeframe, its wide implications are not.
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Aug 14, 2015
Season 1 Review:
We are brought into the story when the housing case has already been battled over for years, by dozens of political and legal players who are introduced to us in rapid-fire succession. But if you stick with the show, the confusion clears, not with the help of expository chunks of dialogue, but through a lifelike repetition of names, issues, and stakes.
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TV Guide MagazineAug 6, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Engrossing six-hour docudrama.... Nick's decline, grounded in a somber, unflashy realism by director Paul Haggis plays out within a parable of race and class schisms, wit serialized subplots humanizing the disadvantaged citizens from the projects. [10-23 Aug 2015, p.12]
Aug 13, 2015
Season 1 Review:
The best parts of Show Me a Hero are the sharply drawn mini-portraits of people who will ultimately move into the new public housing. Spread throughout the first five hours, you hope you will find a hero there, but in vain. They're just normal people looking for a better life, and ultimately find one.
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Aug 12, 2015
Aug 13, 2015
Season 1 Review:
When it focuses on the tragedy of Nick Wasicsko, Hero is fascinating, with Simon and co-writer William F. Zorzi tying together the personal and the political in an intelligent and often heartbreaking way. But the series is less successful when it comes to the various supporting characters.
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Aug 13, 2015
Season 1 Review:
The potential emotional satisfaction of this melodrama, which is insultingly pat to begin with, is hampered by the seemingly endless scenes of council meetings that Simon characteristically loves, which are contextually diluted by the stock dialogue and cartoon acting that surrounds them.
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