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Taron Egerton and Denis Lehane Re-Team for Another Satisfying True Crime Series with Arson Thriller ‘Smoke’: TV Review
Taron Egerton and Dennis Lehane re-team for another satisfying true crime series with the arson thriller on Apple TV+.
But while Egerton was excellent as a career criminal brought face-to-face with the ugly extreme of his own unquestioned machismo, the showier role went to Paul Walter Hauser, who played a serial killer slowly goaded into a confession and ultimately took home the trophy for outstanding supporting actor. “Smoke” follows one of the two arsonists in Dave and Michelle’s sights from the start: Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), a chicken shop fry cook whose slow, halting speech and urge to set the homes of seemingly happy strangers on fire appear to stem from some kind of mental disability. Egerton can easily project confidence and affability, but once Dave is fully unmasked, the role of “arson investigator who’s also an arsonist” proves just as rich as Hauser’s nakedly misogynist id in “Black Bird.” Mwine, too, is fantastic; you feel for lonely, hapless Freddy even as watching him makes you want to crawl out of your skin.
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