Snowfall 2017 S04 2160p HULU WEB-DL DDP5 1 HEVC-TEPES

Snowfall review - John Singleton's crack-cocaine drama is messy but magical

A new show tracks the origin story of South Central's crack-cocaine epidemic, but a brilliant cast sometimes gets lost amid disparate narrative threads

@jhnevins
Wed 5 Jul 2017 14.53 BST

At any other time, the new crime drama Snowfall might be a bona fide hit. It has all the ingredients of one, from a wonderful cast to a strong visual through-line, a gifted creator in John Singleton, and a prolific motivating force: the origin story of crack-cocaine in South Central LA, the place Singleton so richly examined in his Oscar-nominated debut feature Boyz n the Hood. But it all adds up to something undercooked, and maybe too ambitious for its own good, bound to test viewers' patience in an age when great television shows are a dime a dozen.

Snowfall is something of a period piece, its documentation of the epidemic that befell so many black neighborhoods in the 1980s complex, stylized, and atmospheric. But Singleton, alongside his co-creators Eric Amadio and Dave Andron, bites off a lot and leaves much to be chewed; plotlines are abundant but their intersections vague and slow to emerge, while an extremely talented ensemble cast is left underserved by the push-and-pull between the show's three competing storylines, each of which might merit at least a limited series on its own.

The first of those loose narrative threads follows Franklin Saint, an affable young man played with cool curiosity by the baby-faced Damson Idris. Franklin went to a fancy suburban high school on a scholarship and then moved home to be near his mother, Sharon (the amazing Michael Hyatt), with whom he lives. A steely, enterprising kid with gusto, Franklin works two jobs, one clerking at the local convenience store, the other selling weed for his uncle Jerome.

Franklin quickly finds out that the money's in cocaine when a friend asks him for help renewing his supply. Though Franklin is cool as a cucumber when he arrives at a gaudy, gilded mansion in the Valley - greeted by the sound of a gunshot and a flamboyant, speedo-wearing cocaine hustler named Avi (Alon Aboutboul) - the angst and naivete that would afflict any teenager tasked with turning a brick of cocaine into a wad of cash lies just beneath the surface. Idris, a British actor short on recognition but long on talent, plunges many depths in the role, as the aptly surnamed Mr Saint wrestles, mostly internally, with his chosen trade and the momma's boy sullied by it.

Other narratives are comparatively half-baked, including that of Teddy McDonald (Carter Hudson), a CIA agent who teams up with a Contra soldier (Juan Javier Cardenas) to peddle cocaine and fund the sale of government arms to anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Hudson, who was terrific last year as a drug-testing volunteer in Lucy Prebble's play The Effect, is perfectly cast as a disgraced former government operative, equal parts cautious and thrill-seeking as he guns for a high-stakes assignment. But the scope with which Snowfall chronicles the Contra scandal - the real-life version of which nearly subsumed the Reagan administration while helping proliferate the crack-cocaine that would pillage black neighborhoods - is far too anecdotal, leading us to wonder why it's included at all.

The third, final, and most underdeveloped portion of the narrative triptych includes a Mexican drug cartel that recruits Gustavo, an ageing wrestler, to do its dirty work. Lucia, played by the quietly captivating Emily Rios (another soon-to-be breakout star), is the cartel head's daughter, plotting to seize control of the family business. Through the six episodes made available to critics, these threads unite only tangentially, which might not have mattered had the show not taken such a dioramic perspective on its chosen subject matter.

But what Snowfall lacks in clarity and concision it very nearly makes up for in style. The pilot episode, directed by Adil El Arbi, bathes Franklin's neighborhood in a tree-lined California glow before revealing all the cracks in its surface. Singleton apparently had the bars removed from windows in the neighborhood to more accurately capture life in South Central before cocaine, and then crack, devastated its inhabitants.

The series peaks in episode four, directed by Hiro Murai (a frequent collaborator on Donald Glover's Atlanta), which leads Alejandro and Carter to a "e;well-hidden haven of guerrilla warfare"e; in Nicaragua, letting the show breathe a little while lending a sense of humanity to the Contra soldiers left mostly unseen. Back in LA, Franklin and his friend Leon manage (well, mostly mismanage) the fallout from a drug deal gone awry, their tactfulness beginning to fissure.

Like Atlanta and another FX series, Ryan Murphy's Feud, both of which deftly channel distinct milieus, there's something lyrical about Snowfall's tale of South Central, so thoroughly grounded in Singleton's sense of time and place. Plus, Snowfall adds itself to the growing list of prestige TV shows enhanced by excellent music supervision; the pilot episode closes beautifully with Nina Simone's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, and elsewhere the show pulses along with the help of Schoolly D, the Fixx, and Hall & Oates.

But a show can't coast on style alone, and Snowfall, with a lack of focus and a surfeit of material, can sometimes barely contain itself. In the hands of another director, it might have been a total mess. With Singleton and his auteurist sensibilities at the helm, at least it's a beautiful one.

General
Complete name: Snowfall.2017.S04E01.Re-Entry.2160p.HULU.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.HEVC-TEPES.mkv
Format : Matroska
Duration : 50 min 13 s

Video
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Bit rate : 15.2 Mb/s
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS

Audio
Format/Info : Enhanced Audio Coding 3
Bit rate : 256 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Language : English

Subtitles : English, English SDH

Screens