Jake Gyllenhaal | Ruth Negga | Bill Camp | Renate Reinsve
#seriesreview #appletv #presumedinnocent #2024 #jakegyllenhaal
#classic #adaptation #1990 #legalthriller
Background credits:
Apocalypse by SYBS
#seriesreview #appletv #presumedinnocent #2024 #jakegyllenhaal
#classic #adaptation #1990 #legalthriller
Background credits:
Apocalypse by SYBS
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FunTranscript
00:00Let's assume that Jake Gyllenhaal has a knack for being part of recreated classics with
00:07a twist. We can accept that for Roadhouse. The main reason was Doug Liman as he didn't
00:13deviate much, and the movie was not heavy on characterization. Instead, it relied on
00:19action for entertainment. But Scott Turow's novel is of a different genre, and has already
00:24been adapted once in 1990 by Alan J. Pakula and Frank Pearson. So, comparisons will be
00:30made by many critics. The 1990 classic had a script that was made clear and straightforward.
00:36The build-up to the climax was not too dramatic. Plus, the office romance was put in a shady
00:41light all along. The concept of right and wrong was always clear. If you have watched
00:45the 1990s classic, you would know that the characters were a little troubling from the
00:49beginning. Rusty Savage played by Harrison Ford wasn't that smart to figure it all out
00:54right in the beginning. He played the character to the required dumbness. I mean, if he was
00:59able to fall for a girl in his office, he ought to have a mind that doesn't always work.
01:04The same if you try to apply for a 2024 adaptation could also work, but provided you stick to
01:09the true characterization. Unfortunately, we currently live in a world of political
01:14correctness, and so how can anyone be as bad as it seems? That little grey shadiness
01:19explored in the 1990 adaptation was posthumously killed. The characters in the David E. Kelly's
01:262024 adaptations are all correct in their own stand, and there's no good, bad, or evil.
01:32So, the clear demarcation was already subdued due to alignment to the current times of political
01:37correctness. This, I feel, is an intrinsic flaw in the script. Though he did portray
01:42Rusty a little dumb but to an extent of only being impulsive, the rest of the plot is about
01:46creating diversions for the audience. The audience would have accepted that too, given
01:51the storyline didn't try to skew away in the season finale. The aspersions and assumptions
01:56for a good thriller would have subsided if they chose the sons of the characters in question
02:01in bad light due to their presence at the scene of crime. The impulse would have been
02:05justified as Kyle and Michael portrayed that throughout the series. They would have become
02:10the perfect choice for the chosen ploy that David would have dreamt of. But because they
02:14were too obvious for the viewers to guess, David chose to get away with a completely
02:18oblivious character of Jaden, who had little or no role in the knowledge of her father's
02:23doing. At least that's what was portrayed throughout the series. The script did try
02:28to place subtle hints about her character flaw in ways she tried to justify the wrongdoings.
02:33It appeared as if she said this about Rusty, but the doubt was out in the open. Moreover,
02:38her possessiveness towards her father was also made evident in the later episodes. These
02:42hints were indeed sufficient as the script was casting too much aspersions on every other
02:46character that you would think of. My assumptions as to how they should end season 1 is based
02:52on a few series that I have watched. The least I was expecting is the plot similar to Defending
02:57Jacob, where Rusty would also suffice to the plot to kill, and the doubt remains open.
03:03The creators chose to go to the route of another HBO hit miniseries, The Night Of, where the
03:07accused or the presumed innocent as in this series got free due to a perfect deadlock
03:12situation where the circumstantial evidence isn't sufficient to point fingers at the
03:16real culprit. And I have no complaints who they chose to be a killer, but the hurriedness
03:21in portraying that is an abyss downstream. If they chose to end the season on the same
03:26lines of The Night Of, I would be more happy. As then, the season 2 would be set nicely
03:32to catch the real culprit. Now the only way out for this hurried ending to develop it
03:37into an anthology series where each season will have a different story to explore. It's
03:42a production and creative nightmare if they haven't planned for such outcomes.