Spoilers through Season One of 'Gotham' may be present in the following review. Reader beware.
Gotham is an interesting twist on the Batman universe. Rather than tell a long coming-of-age story about the boy-who-would-become-the-bat, FOX and Warner Bros. decided to tell the story of Jim Gordon, the once-and-future Commissioner of Gotham City.
Starring Ben McKenzie as Gordon and Donal Logue as his corrupt-but-affable partner Harvey Bullock, Gotham got off to a pretty great start last week. I wasn't reviewing the show yet but decided to give it a whirl after watching the pilot.
In the opening episode we see a familiar city: the fictional New York City of the DC Universe, a metropolis as bleak and corrupt as it is elegant and gorgeous. There's something so old-school and appropriate about the mahogany-laced police department, you can almost smell the wood polish. Gotham captures all of this beautifully.
McKenzie is a perfect casting choice for Gordon, reminiscent of a young Russell Crowe. It's like he's stepped off the set of L.A. Confidential. Logue, meanwhile---who I last saw playing a corrupt ex-US Marshal in Sons of Anarchy---is a crooked cop with a slightly withered, but still pretty big, heart. The two play off one another remarkably well, to the point that with a handful of exceptions I almost wish the show would try harder to be a buddy cop drama and little else.
First, let's talk about the exceptions to that---the characters that help emboss and enliven this story of Jim Gordon's rise to power and his relentless effort to bring justice and honesty to a city laid low by corruption and malaise.
Robin Lord Taylor is wonderfully creepy as a young Penguin, a more-than-slightly maniacal lackey destined to much bigger things. The show is a tad heavy-handed reminding us just who he's supposed to be---then again, the last time we saw a Penguin on-screen (outside of animated Batman episodes) was Danny DeVito's Penguin in Batman Returns, way back in 1992.
While we haven't seen much of him yet, I'm also rather fond of Sean Pertwee's rendition of Alfred Pennyworth. Michael Cain is a lovely actor---in spite of the misspelling of his last name---but he was always too much Michael Cain and too little Alfred in the Dark Knight trilogy. Pertwee, on the other hand, is perfectly grumpy in Gotham. He's the classic "Get off my lawn!" sort of curmudgeon, but obviously cares for the young Bruce Wayne enormously.
John Doman as mob-boss Carmine Falcone is great as well. He reminds me a bit of Gene Hackman (or Evil Gene Hackman, rather) but without quite the star power, which I think is a good thing. In fact, the relative lack of "star power" in Gotham works greatly in the show's favor. Nothing hinges on one actor's huge fan-base, and everyone has the opportunity to settle into their roles comfortably, so long as the direction and writing keep pace.
This is where Gotham is a bit more hit and miss so far. Along with less-than-stellar performances by some of the cast, including Jada Pinkett Smith's performance as mob underling Fish Mooney, the writing is a bit off-kilter at times.
On the one hand, you have some great dialogue between Gordon and Bullock. On the other, you have vengeful monologues by Mooney vowing to kill Falcone with her bare hands! And her teeth!
I'm going to point out something about the show now that may ruffle some feathers or make some readers a little uncomfortable, but I'm going to say it regardless:
Gotham seems to go out of its way to make sure men and women get equal air time even when some roles in question make way more sense filled by men rather than women, given the set-up.
Mooney is one example of this. Maybe---maybe---played by the right actress or written the right way, Mooney's character would make sense. But in the world of organized crime, in a city like Gotham, I just don't see this particular character attempting to take on the city's most influential and dangerous crime-lord. This isn't to say we can't have awesome female villains or criminals, it's just that the character that is Fish Mooney makes more sense as one of Falcone's inner circle. And in the world of organized crime, and presumably Italian organized crime, this is more than likely going to be a man. An Italian man. Jada Pinkett Smith seems wildly out of place in this world of film noire mobsters.
It could be that I'm basing this on my less-than-stellar reception of Smith's acting here, but I feel like she's simply been poorly cast. There's a place for a strong female badguy in a show like this. This just isn't the right role, and it feels off to me. And frankly, Smith's acting gets over-the-top in a way that just doesn't fit.
Zabryna Guevara, on the other hand, does a fine job as police Captain Sarah Essen. And she'd be a totally fine police Captain in Law & Order. But in corrupt "good ol' boys" police-land that is Gotham City, it makes no sense at all to have a female police chief. It does two things: It enforces my belief that casting in Gotham was done purposefully with diversity in mind rather than believability and it makes the story less believable in the process. Why not focus on a strong female cop in the force? Essen is a throw-away character.
I'm all for diversity, but I think it makes more sense to make a character like Catwoman a person of color (see Halle Berry) rather than expect us to believe that a mafia-run police department chalk full of good ol' boys is going to have a female in charge.
Finally, moving carefully away from the gender and diversity subject, I'm not entirely fond of the time period Gotham takes place in. While it's beautifully shot and evokes an older era, it's still a TV series that's decidedly modern. Gordon's pad (which he shares with the pristine-but-troubled Barbara Kean played by Erin Richards) is too rich and too modern and too...2014.
I guess I was hoping for more than just a Gotham aesthetic; I wanted this to be more of a time period piece, taking place in a perhaps-undefinable past decade, some amalgam of the decades prior to cell phones and the internet, when comic books were only read on the offal of dead trees.
Maybe this all plays into the weird grasping for diversity in the casting as well. I want a Gotham that feels corrupt and icky in all the ways it should---a Gotham that wouldn't allow women to be powerful without a fight. That's deeply in the clutches of an old aristocracy of power and crime and twisted government. Instead we have a Gotham that has a generic sort of crime problem but is pretty much otherwise just as diverse and progressive and okay as the New York City of 2014. Maybe more so.
But the street-rat version of Catwoman is still a pretty white girl. Both the lead characters are still white dudes. It's this empty effort at diversity-for-diversity's sake that ignores realism and narrative in favor of inclusiveness and political correctness, all of which sends ripples through my ability to suspend my disbelief.
Meanwhile the cinematography, the costume and set design, and a great deal of the acting and dialogue is top-notch. When I feel most present in Gotham is when I'm drinking in the city itself.
I'm left wanting more; to dig deeper into this harrowing city. I'm excited that we have a Batman story that's not about Batman. That we finally get to see the gritty underside of Gotham in a way that's more L.A. Confidential or The Untouchables than The Dark Knight Rises.
I have high hopes for Gotham after its first two episodes. But I have my doubts as well. So much hinges on creating believable characters in believable situations, even in a comic book story. After all, this is a show that seems to want very much to be more about the normals, the non-supers, the people down in the dirt...it just needs to be brave enough to get its own hands dirty in the process. Right now Gotham is too clean and its politics are too modern.
Hopefully the show takes more risks and treats its characters with respect, even if that respect means placing them in far more difficult roles and situations than it has so far.
Gotham airs Monday nights at 7pm PST on FOX.
