Cross Season 1 Review – A trope-filled, cliched crime thriller

Season 1

Episode Guide

Episode 1 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 2 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 3 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 4 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 5 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 6 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 7 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 8 -| Review Score – 2.5/5

 

 

Amazon Prime have been on a roll lately with their Original series. Alongside sequels to Reacher, Rings of Power and Devil’s Hour, the streamers have also been pumping out brand new shows too, including Fallout and, newly released this week, Cross.

Cross is an interesting series because it’s one of those that starts really badly and then grows into its role as the season progresses. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the first episode is actually woeful, all things considered. It’s cliché-ridden, incredibly heavy-handed with its messaging and does absolutely nothing to allure itself to audiences, despite some good chemistry between the cast.

However, as the show progresses, the story becomes more interesting, although it never steps away from the cliches or the perfunctory way it delivers its story. In fact, if you’ve ever watched a detective thriller, all the hallmarks of the genre are here, present and ticked off.

Alex Cross is your typical haunted detective. He’s great at his job but also grief-stricken and troubled by the death of his wife, Maria. His best friend John is his confidant and there for him, but also a bit hot-headed and rash.

There’s the revolving door of archetypal supporting players too, including the outspoken female detectives, the cooky goofball, and the crooked Chief who’s only out for her own gain. On top of this, we also have extra players here too, including Alex’s young kids, his step-Mum, Nana Mama, and political bigshot, Ed Ramsay.

We pick up here a year after Maria’s death and unfortunately, the past is brought back again when someone seems to know where Alex lives and taunts this death in front of his face. At the same time, we also get the troubling reveal of a serial killer case, spread across the 8 episodes. Or, well, 7 really, because the finale dives into the aforementioned stalker case instead.

As for the narrative, the dominant plot thread is really a whydunit, while the side-quest gig involving the stalking is more of a whodunit. We actually find out who the killer is toward the end of episode 1, only for it to be confirmed properly in episode 2. This means Cross does that annoying thing where the characters are scrambling to catch up to information we, as the audience, already know. While this can work out well and rachet up the tension, Cross has nowhere near the writing chops to pull off such a swing without it constantly undermining its own tension with long, drawn out scenes. As a result, a lot of the time we’re just waiting for this cat and mouse chase to get underway.

The antagonist (who I won’t spoil in this review) is bland and your obvious megalomaniac with no redeeming features. They’re a sociopath, have a grandiose view of themselves and are ultimately revealed to be a cartoonish villain that wants to be revered and remembered. The motivations have no sense of nuance, and instead hinge on this person just being mad for the sake of it.

While there’s nothing wrong with that, given the way this story thread is set up as a whydunit and more of a cat and mouse thriller, the show fails to capitalize on the opportunity to brush shades of grey on both Alex and the killer’s lives. This is particularly disappointing because for Alex, that is definitely the case. He’s called out multiple times for the way he handles situations, including coming in too arrogant or abrasive, and seeing him slowly unhinge and lose himself across the season is easily the strongest part of the whole show.

Unfortunately, these strong character moments are undercut by a contrived narrative that parades out a number of tropes we’ve seen so many times in this genre. It all becomes stale and predictable in the end, right down to the whole crooked cop angle, the main character losing his job only to suddenly get it back thanks to new evidence and a surprising last-minute twist at the end that recontextualizes parts of the story.

The twist is actually a good one though and although it does come off a bit rushed and hastily cobbled together, it works well in the context of the narrative. The trouble is, the show focuses so heavily on the serial killer drama that when it does shift focus on this secondary stalking issue – which is played as a whodunit – it doesn’t have anywhere near the weight needed to pull off as an effective deterrent for Alex Cross to overcome.

It’s not helped by the fact the show uses convenient lightbulb moments which are used so often it becomes farcical and unintentionally funny. Remember what I said about cliches? Well, there’s no actual lightbulb that pops up above Cross’ head, but there might as well be. The camera zooms in suddenly, echoing voices float around and then Cross bolts upright, eyes wide, as he realizes that he’s missed something and the case is blown wide open.

When this is used constantly, it devalues the intensity of these reveals and it’s a trap that Cross falls into one too many times.

The other trap that this show falls into is with its messaging. I won’t go into the political and social aspects here too much, but I will say the first episode in particular is absolutely relentless in the anti-police sentiment it pushes out. There’s a consistently slanted message in one direction of the political spectrum and there’s not really much in the way of balance. It also distracts annoyingly from the main narrative, especially as it doesn’t work with the motivations for either antagonist in the cases we follow.

The episodes that follow are a bit better than the first, and when the story focuses more on the crime and cat and mouse chase, it definitely feels a lot stronger. Part of this stems from the acting chops of Aldis Hodge. He’s really solid in this role as Alex and he has a lot of range. While he’s starred in films like Black Adam and One Night In Miami, I honestly think one of his best performances is in a low budget sci-fi flick that came out earlier this year, Parallel. He has excellent range in that and I’m glad he’s getting the chance to show it off in Cross.

With the show already greenlit for a second season, it’s clear Amazon have a lot of faith in this project. The 8 episodes certainly aren’t bad, but they’re not particularly great either. This is a trope-filled, cliched crime thriller with all the usual plot beats you’d expect over 8 episodes. The narrative is actually quite disjointed, especially with the two cases interwoven messily together, and I can’t help but feel the show would have worked more effectively with a slightly shorter run-time but focusing exclusively on one case at a time.

Aesthetically, Cross is fine although there are some scenes that feel like they drag on for far too long, and others still that are way too dark. It’s actually quite hard to see what’s going on at times during the interior scenes with dark rooms and warehouses, although this is something that plagues a lot of other modern TV shows too.

The musical score does its job but there are a few really odd inclusions in the soundtrack. I’m not sure whose decision it was to include ‘X Gun Give It To Ya’ during the final fight in episode 8, but it’s one of the most bizarre stylistic choices I think I’ve seen all year. It’s right up there with including rap music in the Gladiator II trailer.

With all that being said, Cross tries to have its cake and eat it too, and in the end, it’s just going to give audiences a proverbial stomach ache. This is a frustrating series because too often decent character writing is undone by poor plotting and narrative work, making for an underwhelming and flawed crime thriller.

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