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Critic Reviews
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Tyrant is the most engrossing new show of the summer.... Gordon’s razor-sharp timing, a skill honed on “24,” serves Tyrant well.
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The pilot is riveting but, like our protagonist Barry, a bit joyless. Here’s hoping the series doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own gravitas; it’s a compelling premise that plays out in a part of the world not often seen on TV.
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In its early episodes, Tyrant is as engaging when it focuses on family drama as when it veers more in the direction of taut, serialized, political thriller.
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In essence, Tyrant is a ruling-family variant on The Godfather, shifted from Italy and America to the Middle East. But don't dismiss the shift out of hand: That move is precisely what makes Tyrant so intriguing--and so troubling.
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Both "The Godfather" and Tyrant are, at heart, about family dynamics. As the Al-Fayeed story evolves beyond Tuesday's pilot, that fact becomes clearer.
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It's just a good story, cleverly told. It's not going to resolve the troubles in the Middle East, but then again, neither has anything else.
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The cast, and the potential arc of the well-performed lead, will keep audiences interested but this show needs to be more engaging on an episode-to-episode level soon or they’ll move on.
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Tyrant looks great. The cast is excellent.... The family soap opera might be more fun if the stakes weren't so high, the politics more riveting if Barry's reform attempts weren't so obviously doomed.
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The cinematography is stunning, the music and atmospherics are immersive. With occasional hiccups the acting is mostly subtle. Suspension of disbelief will be required (how else can Bassam/Barry slip out of his father's palace in the middle of the night to rendez-vous with an old journalist buddy?) But Tyrant is worth the effort.
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It’s brutal, violent and graphic. And it’s a story we’ve seen before.
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Tyrant strives to be big, momentous and powerful. But while sometimes jabbing to good effect, it lacks a heavyweight’s punch.
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Gordon has said that he's trying to dramatize the "complexity" of the Middle East, but there's not a lot of depth to the pilot.... If there's one thing that saves Tyrant, it's Bassam. By the end of the pilot, he's not the boring, all-moral hero that he seems.
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The Middle East of Gordon’s Tyrant is as explosive as on “24” and “Homeland,” but he’s much better at letting the special effects guys manufacture the blasts than he is at creating those moments with his characters.
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The first episode of Tyrant, the only one I've seen, is both exotic (the cultural elements surrounding the wedding are fascinating) and unfortunately trite, to the point of embracing stereotypes about the Middle East that some early viewers have found offensive.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 119 out of 156
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Mixed: 15 out of 156
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Negative: 22 out of 156
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Jul 3, 2014
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Jun 25, 2014This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Jun 28, 2014