The Comey Rule

As constructed by writer-director Billy Ray, “The Comey Rule” will be a gripping yarn even to those already familiar with Mr. Comey’s history. And its cast of familiar faces will provide a degree of amusement to a narrative that’s not otherwise a lot of fun.

Daniels is especially good at showing us Comey's thoughtful, accessible, reassuringly calm expression when faced with terrible problems and pressures. ... Donald Trump, played by Brendan Gleeson, skillfully avoiding caricature, a challenge for a real-life character of excesses and exaggerations.

Like everything else about the Trump presidency, The Comey Rule seems unlikely to change any hearts or minds. There's nevertheless something useful about seeing the dry pages of nonfiction brought to life, in a production that's hardy flawless but whose stellar casting represents showboating in the best TV sense of the term.

The series has a sensibility that’s as traditional and straight-arrow as Comey thinks of himself. But it does get more compelling as it progresses, particularly in part two, when Donald Trump fully enters the picture.

If you can get past reservations about Ray’s idealization of Comey, Part 2 of The Comey Rule becomes a mesmerizing dramatization of a soul being slowly crushed.

It's hard to imagine that Comey, polished and well-acted as it is, will sway many hearts and minds. Those who support Donald Trump are highly unlikely to watch, and those who don't — well, a dramatic re-enactment of the events surrounding the 2016 election may feel less like entertainment and more like ideological torture porn.

As it races to introduce a whole host of characters and motivations in the first half-hour, The Comey Rule struggles under the burden of trying to explain who all these people are, and what role they play in the proceedings. But once we get into the fraught nature of the Clinton investigation—and just as the team, including Comey’s new second-in-command, Andrew McCabe (a superb Michael Kelly), realizes they’re standing on a land mine of partisan undermining of the FBI—the story gets compelling.

Against all odds, The Comey Rule actually manages to accomplish what should be the primary goal of any dramatization of true-life events – it successfully recontextualizes Trump’s election and early presidency in a way that both offers new insight and reflects on the effects those months have had on the current state of the country.