Show Me a Hero (2015)

It's well acted. It's honest (worthy perhaps is a better word). It's also very literal, not much in the way of drama, the pace is (understandably) slow and steady, local politics mixed with soap opera. The motivation of the characters isn't really made clear and they aren't really developed very much. I didn't feel like I got to know anybody by the end of the series. I'm sure it's true to the book etc, but as I said it's literal, a bit clunky, somewhat dull. There are important wider issues illustrated here of course, and I was generally glad I watched it. The IMDb minimum of ten lines makes for an extraordinarily long review in my opinion. I think they should reduce it to - say -7 or possibly 8 - lines at some point in the near future.

I suppose you know when a show is so good that you keep thinking about it and thinking about it after it's over. That was my reaction to Show Me a Hero. I thought it started out a bit slowly, but kept building and building, and the final episodes were just great.I lived in Northern NJ at the time of this, so I remember this story a little bit in the local news. I had no idea how Nick Wasicsko ended up, and it is indeed tragic.This could have been a VERY politically slanted film if it wanted to. However, I think it tried hard not to be, and for that I applaud it. I just wanted to watch the story, and not be preached to.As others have noted, Oscar Isaac is amazing in this role. When I first saw him in, "Inside Llewyn Davis," he was so unlikable that I figured he was either a jerk or a great actor. It's definitely the latter.And I don't think we've seen the last of Carla Quevedo, who played Nick's wife. She's gorgeous AND, she can act!My only minor criticism of this was in its presentation during the initial run on HBO. I would have preferred six one-hour episodes rather than three two-hour episodes. Although it's the same amount of running time, it was a bit ambitious to try to watch the show in two hour chunks. Thank God for the DVR so I was able to break it up a little.

I'm a HUGE David Simon fan. Will read anything he's written (yes, I read the Corner, all 800-some-odd pages of it), and watch anything he produces. Homicide, The Wire, you-name-it. But I feel that he completely lost the plot here, no pun intended. The overall theme seems to be "integration and giving poor people houses in middle-class residential neighborhoods that don't want them is GOOD." I wondered, half-way through this (still determined to watch it in its entirety, because, hey, David Simon, right?) if Obama had picked up the phone and called HBO, saying, "hey, couldja find a book to convert into a series about forced low-income housing, and how great it all worked out, because I'm getting ready to jam that issue nationwide down the throats of other residents," rather than anyone in their right mind thinking that this was worthwhile *as entertainment.* ****SPOILERS START BELOW*****Was it worthwhile as, perhaps, a documentary? Sure--in about 1/6th of the time. Watching it for SIX HOURS simply to watch a real-life character disintegrate? And that's the "hero" of the show? Uh...???? The mayor--the guy who gets nominated for the JFK Profile In Courage award, self-destructs and eventually suicides. There's really no correlation, unless you want to assume that the only reason this guy didn't have a meteoric rise is because the evil councilmen hosed him on the housing issue.Which, mind you, he didn't actually CHAMPION. He just elected (yes, intentional pun) NOT to fight it because a) the City of Yonkers would go bankrupt if he didn't, and b), I think from the subtext that he didn't want to be sued, personally, if he didn't support it. He was elected, in fact, not because he CHAMPIONED the housing--but because he campaigned AGAINST it. So...sorry, where's the heroism here? If anything, the council people that fought it, even if utterly in the wrong, were more heroic because they stuck to their guns. They didn't switch horses in midstream, just because it was politically expedient. The entire award nomination was utter Political Correctness.Which--if you're watching with an educated and critical eye--is sort of the theme of the entire show. Political correctness run amok. Yes, a perfectly normal middle-class neighborhood is torn apart, in order to forcibly slam low-income housing right in the middle of it, in townhome groupings in something like 28 locations. The neighbors--even without being remotely bigoted (not to say that they weren't, but as a property owner) are vehemently opposed, as it will affect their property values.Throughout, the predominantly or all-white residents are effectively all portrayed as EVIL, except for the ONE resident who "sees the light" and decides to welcome the newcomers. Not one of the existing residents is shown as a perfectly normal person who would, quite naturally, have misgivings about what low-income housing, across the street from them, will do to their own property values. Nope--they were all stereotypical ranting bigots. {sigh} ALL the residents are low-income women of color with no man in the house, and with multiple children. (Stereotypes much?). Again, sure, it's story-telling, and by definition, has to be condensed and compressed, but--no pun intended-there are no shades of grey here. All the low-income residents are good; all the opponents are BAD. Only the mayor who changes his stance--not by choice, mind you--is "good." The performances are great. No doubt. But none--NONE--of the characters are particularly likable. The mayor is not. The council people basically all suck. The poor families have the only really likable characters. Again...stereotyping.It's just...it's a 60 minute tale, at MOST, bloated and inflated out to six hours. There aren't any heroes here, ironically. Rather than an enjoyable story that carries a moral lesson, it's a moral lesson and political and sociological stance forcibly rammed down your viewing throat, disguised as a story. And that disguise isn't very good.If you waste your time, don't say you weren't warned.

The only reason I threw this show some stars is because of Oscar Issac's performance. Other than that, it didn't really need to be made into a show. If for whatever reason, you're interested in 1980's Yonkers politics, then this brief series of event can be read on Wikipedia in about 15 mins. INSTEAD OF WATCHING ABOUT IT FOR 7 HOURS!! It really was like sitting through a long boring conference meeting, where people squabble about politics, we follow the lives of some mildly interesting characters, while our HERO(?) fights earnestly to slightly improve their living arrangements. Show me a Hero? I'm still waiting...