Review: Black Bird on Apple+ a slick thriller that masters pace and subtlety

British actor Taron Egerton serves as both producer and lead performer in this slickly directed crime thriller, a limited series hitting the Apple+ streaming service this week.

Egerton plays Jimmy Keene, a minor-league criminal who is starting a 10-year prison sentence after being caught with far too much cocaine and high-powered firearms to get away with a plea deal his lawyer tries to set up for him.

A former high school football hero and the son of a decorated policeman (Ray Liotta in one of his final roles), Jimmy has gone off the rails.

Despite his natural charisma making life in prison easier for him than others, he still wants to get back out into the real world.

An offer that might make a return to the real world possible comes Jimmy's way, in the form of detective Lauren McCauley (Sepideh Moafi).

McCauley wants to use Jimmy's natural charm, the kind of charm that draws people close and makes them share.

She has a suspect in a series of killings, already in jail on a lesser set of charges, and she wants to set up a confession.

If Jimmy can extract a confession from Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) he will get his sentence expunged.

But Larry is an interesting figure - either the cunning mastermind of a series of killings, or a genuinely dim-witted serial confessor to crimes he knows nothing about.

Jimmy takes the offer and transfers to the same prison as Larry - meanwhile in flashbacks we meet Brian Miller (Greg Kinnear), the detective on one of the murders Larry is suspected of.

This series has a lot going for it, and this starts with the open cheque book the Apple+ streaming service throws at its productions.

That buys them immaculate production values, with Mystic River novelist Dennis Lehane adapting the real-life Jimmy (James) Keene's autobiographical book.

Turning the words into celluloid are a handful of noteworthy directors, with Belgian Michael R. Roskam (Bullhead, The Drop) in the chair for the first three episodes and Joe Chappelle of The Wire and Fringe fame stepping in for later episodes.

Their sense of pace is spot on.

The tension and build-up are impeccable.

Assisting them here is a bass-and-distortion heavy score from the Scottish band Mogwai.

Capable cinematography - jumping from idyllic rural settings of the murders to tight-in prison interiors - from Natalie Kingston (Shapeless, The Wolf of Snow Hollow) seamlessly scaffolds the direction.

The casting is great too - some new faces, some solid character performers, and a handful of luminary names.

This is Egerton's show.

He was criminally overlooked for his Rocketman performances in the last award season.

How can Rami Malek have won the Oscar for lip-synching a performance of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody when Egerton sang every note of his Elton John?

Egerton is already a bit of a beast, but he obviously spent much of his COVID lockdown in the home gym because the man is ripped to shreds.

Even as Elton John in the apparently flabby and coke-addled part of the singer's life, Taron still had a frame any man would envy.

Here he has worked on a physicality that helps him inhabit his characterisation.

Jimmy is a man in the minor leagues of the criminal world whose charisma and physical appearance are what draw people to him.

Fascinating to watch is Paul Walter Hauser's possible killer.

It is a master class in subtlety.

Black Bird is a suspenseful return to some modern classic television - the earthy grit of The Wire, the noir sensibility of True Detective.

Three episodes in, this is already a fascinating cat-and-mouse game, or series of games, with Jimmy slowly understanding the intelligence at play in his target, and beginning to understand that there is more at stake than his possible freedom.

I'm hooked.