The Night of (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Night of (2016) – R. Price & S. Zaillian

I binged watched this series from HBO over the course of a week or so but, in the end, it really isn’t that much more than a glorified extra-long episode of Law & Order.  That said, the long form allows for much greater character development.  We have Riz Ahmed as the Pakistani-American uni student who makes some poor decisions and ends up on trial for murder.  We have John Turturro as the low-rent lawyer who ends up defending him, against his own financial interests.  We have Bill Camp as the chief detective on the case, about to retire, making mistakes.  We have Jeannie Berlin as the prosecuting attorney, ready to deal and to ignore evidence.  We have Michael K. Williams as a powerful inmate at Rikers, ready to take Naz (Ahmed) under his protection.  We have Amara Karan as the junior lawyer drawn into the defence by her publicity-seeking boss.  We have Payman Maadi and Poorna Jagannathan as Naz’s parents.  And many more characters who make a mark.  So, it’s a police procedural and a courtroom drama for those that like such things.  It also tackles some significant social issues – American prejudice toward Muslims after 9/11, the negative impact of prisons on people (even those not yet convicted), the pressures and biases in our justice system (and the influence of money upon it), and more.  It is mostly dark, often extremely so, although there are occasional moments of humour (courtesy of Turturro and his bad eczema and cat allergy).  I fully enjoyed it across the 500 or so minutes, while recognising that it was written to leave viewers wanting more at the end of each episode and knowing that a much deeper treatment of these issues was possible.