Skunkyrate
Gripping story with well-crafted characters
BroadcastChic
Excellent, a Must See
FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Mabel Munoz
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
alexm-32086
Very good so far, This show is very intriguing.
The acting is great (MOST of the time) story line is somewhat flawed but still very engaging and entertaining.. I still can't tell if these awkward camera angles are brilliant or just plain annoying but its still a good watch
Bert Krus
I've been watching American Crime ever since the first season. Now I just finished season 3. For me, as a European, this is one of the best American series I've seen in a very long time. The series portrays the average American citizen struggling to get through life. Jobs, relationships, friendships, they are all far from perfect. What strikes me the most is that the people disappoint each other deeply. Men belittle women, the rich exploit the poor, family is betrayal and the youth is forlorn and empty. But then comes the point of somebody seeking justice. Some get it, but many don't and have bite the dust. Next to the story, the acting and directing is of the highest level. Felicity Huffmann, Timothy Hutton and Lili Taylor are fantastic in their drama and lunacy.
Gary Schouborg
American Crime (2015
) is a first-rate series out of ABC, somewhat surprisingly, since its characters are more complex than we usually expect from the major networks. Like one reviewer observed, it seems much more like an HBO or some other cable original. My wife Nini and I loved the first two seasons, with different story lines each season. To our delight, we just read a report that there is going to be a third season.What I most like about the series is the way its characters are both smart and obtuse just like the rest of us. They are not stupid, as in, "How could anyone who's supposed to be that smart be so stupid?!" In American Crime, people misunderstand one another just as they do in real life: not from being stupid, but from not being sophisticated enough or just plain patient enough to consider all the angles in a complex interaction. American Crime is drama, and definitely not didactic. Yet it could effectively supplement an academic class on how people interact when under pressure in an unfamiliar situation.The mind does not naturally associate American Crime with another TV series, Lonesome Dove (1989). Yet a friend stimulated me to compare the two when he complained that the latter lacked a plot. In recognizing that he was right, and wondering why I had not experienced that as a lack, I realized that there is no plot in life. We do not usually die at the culmination of a project whose end coincides with our death and which gives complete meaning to our life. Admittedly, there is a narrative involved in driving cattle to Wyoming; but that just organizes the evolution of personalities who may or may not survive the movie. We become emotionally involved with them not primarily through any plot, but through who they are and how they relate to one another. Just like life. There may be various projects in our life, but not an overall, guiding plot. The same for Lonesome Dove. That is why Woodrow Call's (Tommy Lee Jones) taking Gus' (Robert Duvall) body back to Texas wasn't anti-climactic, which it would have been if the central engine of the movie had been a plot about their herding horses to Wyoming. The return of Gus' body was so exceptionally moving just because it was carrying forward something much more emotionally involving than a plot: the keeping of a promise to a life-long friend by a man who was left behind and facing the decline of his life.American Crime is not involving in that way, but depends more on plot. Its characters' mix of smart and obtuse is not so much emotionally involving as interesting, if you happen to notice it while following the action. But by showing the complexity of human interactions, and in a way that does not drown us in complexity by being explicit about it, it is an exceptional account of how we interact with one another.
The Couchpotatoes
Being an ABC series I didn't have high hopes for this one. I only saw season one yet, but if I have to be honest it was entertaining. It's not the best crime drama I ever saw but it's certainly worth a watch. Even though there are a couple characters and/or actors that I don't really like the rest of the cast is okay. At one point they started too much focusing on religion and that was not a good way to go to. Racism and religions are two things I hate but in this season the racism card seems logic in the story. On the other hand the whole religion stuff is just annoying. What annoyed me as well is the sometimes amateur filming of some conversations where you hear people talking but they show those same people doing something else without talking. I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they shot those scenes but to me it didn't look professional at all. But for the story itself season one was worth watching. I will give the second season a chance with the hope they don't continue their stupid religions. Edit after watching season two: I am extremely disappointed with season two. It was painful to watch, with a lot of awful characters, bad acting, a bad story, and still amateur directing. I gave season one a seven but that was a bit too much. Season two gets a 2 so that gives a total of 4 and a half what I will round down to a four. This show doesn't deserve more. I'm not even going to bother watching the next season.