Trust

The premium cast elevates Trust from a good TV series to an absorbing, cinematic venture.

With just three episodes granted to critics, it’s hard to anticipate where this imaginative history piece will go. But for once, this is a story that feels like it might be worth the investment. It’s offering multiple thematic layers for entry--including a pretty bonkers magical realist layer, starring an apparently omniscient statue-performer, that maybe has to be seen to be believed. But maybe best of all, Trust offers a plot with significant dramatic stakes, even if the end is already a foregone conclusion.

These productions are different from, but equal to each other. Neither is an all-timer, but the performances are strong--in particular, Donald Sutherland as the eldest Getty, and Brendan Fraser as a cowboy-styled fixer named Fletcher Chase--and there are enough momentary fascinations to hold the viewer’s interest during slack sections. Both productions are funnier and more engaging than you might expect.

Trust is a strong addition to [the FX] lineup, although it’s unclear whether the Getty mess--all the misery and excess--will remain engaging enough to maintain interest for 10 episodes. Given the skills of Beaufoy and Boyle, I trust that it will.

Trust is frenetically entertaining, but there’s something insurmountably icky, if uncomfortably true, about its premise: Wealth makes people more interesting. The Gettys’ money makes them grotesque, but it also makes them spellbinding.

Trust has its own flaws, but it also has that blend of true crime, macabre comedy, the foibles of the rich and famous, and social issues that made The People v. O.J. so addictive.

It’s a pretty good wallow so far, a real-life Dallas or Dynasty whose more diabolical Ewings and Carringtons swallowed their enemies and family members whole when they weren’t simply spitting them out.

Trust adds to the conversation rather than repeating it. You can count on its pulpy drama, even if the fictional Gettys couldn't count on each other.

Trust often feels made up, and that’s intentional. Beaufoy and fellow executive producer Danny Boyle, who directed the first three episodes, adopt a slyly sardonic tone throughout the story as it unfolds through shifting time periods. With so many morally bankrupt characters, the slightly humorous tone leavens the mood a bit. The performances are captivating.

At the black heart of this uneven but often-mesmerizing crime drama is Donald Sutherland's sly and spellbinding portrayal of the richest man in the world, J. Paul Getty Sr.

Trust's early episodes show some promise, though it remains to be seen if the story will take off to the level of other FX dramas.

Whereas Plummer’s Getty playfully issued unannounced tests to gauge his peers, Sutherland’s makes it a blunt habit. This cranky old man is less interesting, which makes Trust a tougher sell as a long-term investment.

One constant? Brendan Fraser's magnetic performance as family fixer James Fletcher Chance. With his bolo ties and Texas twang, Chance could've been a cartoon, but Fraser keeps him on the right side of caricature. [16/23 March 2018, p.105]

Entertaining and light in its first two episodes, Trust turns more dramatic with higher stakes in episode three as a cold-blooded mafia killer enters the picture. It’s a rough transition in tone and leaves one to wonder how the balance of the 10-episode first season will play out and whether the plot can justify 10 hours compared to the two hours devoted to the same story in “All the Money in the World.”

Trust has all the trappings of an extraordinary period piece, led mostly by such details that highlight the outrageousness of the economically fortunate. Nevertheless, for all of its zesty pacing and Fraser’s best and largely successful efforts to steal every scene he’s in, there’s some core element of soul and feeling missing from it.

Trust is at its most fascinating when it’s pondering wealth. ... The director’s less adept at offering reasons to care about what happens to [Getty III], which is the show’s main source of suspense. Getty III isn’t a brat, or even a devious manipulator. He’s not much at all.

All the Money frequently felt truncated, its story too sprawling for any of its characters to really connect, only Plummer holding the story together; Trust, meanwhile, feels a little scattered and bulky, constantly distracted by whatever catches its fancy when it might be better off bearing down and focusing on a particular storyline.

Part of the problem involves having Fraser speak directly to the camera, perhaps intended to be more "Fargo"-esque, but which winds up feeling just plain goofy.

The show’s appealing performers and catchy look don’t yet outweigh its lack of cohesion and its readiness to fall back on platitudes about the corrosive effects of wealth. “All the Money in the World” was a character study, but so far “Trust” is more of a caricature.

Trust is visually uncertain, but Boyle is quick to try to punch things up with a pounding rock soundtrack. And yet, even here the tone sometimes feels off.

Swank--who arrives in the second episode--is the emotional core of Trust, also the only character with a functioning heart. In the early episodes, you never quite get to know her, and begin to wonder whether she’s worth the effort. But at least over those episodes, she is the reason to watch--the only one.

The outcome of the kidnapping is known to history, and Trust struggles to mine the saga for new insights.