Waco review – cult drama series retells violent history with little finesse | Television & radio | The Guardian

Waco review – cult drama series retells violent history with little finesse | Television & radio | The Guardian




The script allots these two camps one substantive idea apiece: that federal defense organizations have slid from intelligence-gathering into an excessively military mode, and that Koresh’s anti-authoritarian separatism may be a prelude to the surge of flyover-country disenfranchisement that cleared a path for America’s current commander-in-chief. But while both concepts have palpable promise, they’ve been expressed in the plainest imaginable terms. Noesner grips a glass of whiskey and grumbles about his inner conflict to his wife as if reading parenthetical stage direction, and Koresh merely spells out the appeal of his radically alternative lifestyle instead of trapping his latest prey with a genuinely meaningful experience. Aren’t cult leaders supposed to be tactful?

It is perhaps more exciting to watch this tragic footnote of American fringe culture played out than to, say, read about it on Wikipedia, and yet it is hardly more edifying. Paramount Network, eager to prove its bona fides in a crowded premium cable marketplace, has indeed written the checks required for a series with enough panoramic visuals to earn the dubious distinction of “prestige” TV. But the Dowdles’ primary work has been re-enactment rather than dramatization, presenting these characters and images without developing them beyond their factual bullet points. And while the series has plenty more unspooling to do – the pilot ends with the silent, glowering face of John Leguizamo, who will soon go undercover in the compound as ATF agent Robert Rodriguez – it continues to cover breadth rather than depth.

A defter creative hand might be able to carve an affecting and relevant saga out of the Waco quagmire, and for all we know, the forthcoming film by Jaume Collet-Serra, director of The Shallows, will be the one to do it. For now, though, viewers will have to settle for Kitsch’s messiah figure and yet another agent-type whose professional frustrations disrupt his home life from Shannon, the latest in a string of similar gigs cluttering up the master thespian’s filmography. The tragic conclusion to the Waco incident didn’t leave too many survivors, but hopefully Shannon will be able to make it out with his career and dignity intact.