The Night Of: Blu-ray Review
Pakistani-American college student Nasir “Naz” Khan (Riz Ahmed) lives with his parents in Queens, NY, takes his father’s taxi to go to a party in Manhattan. But what starts as a perfect night for Naz becomes a nightmare when he’s arrested for murder. The series examines the police investigation, the legal proceedings, the criminal justice system and Rikers Island, where the accused await trial.
Not since True Detective: Season 1 has a crime drama really made an impression on me. I watched this with an intent eye from the start in hopes that I would be able to spot certain clues but honestly it was kind of hard. The show has depth and so many layers to it that you could honestly pick it apart a bunch of different ways and that amazed me about it. Here we have an innocent kid that gets wrapped up in something that he can’t fully remember and throughout the whole case I could help but flip flop (because of certain revelations) and keep asking myself if the innocent kid that we were all seeing was truly innocent. When a story can cause that kind of reaction then you know that there is truly a great piece of work that was created. There were scenes however that involved John Turturro and his skin condition that I felt weren’t needed as it didn’t have anything to do with the case itself. People may argue that it was a way to get to know the character but I think it could’ve done without it. The other complaint that I had with the show was the actual ending. They built up this story so much and the ending that they gave us wasn’t definitive. It left me disappointed to a certain degree and feeling like there could’ve been at least one more episode that gave us more of an answer as to what ACTUALLY happened but I do see the point in doing what they did though. The acting in this show was some of the best that I’ve seen in a while. Everyone gave great performances but Ahmed was phenomenal in the series and showed that he has the acting chops to be a huge star in the years to come. Like I said previously, this is definitely the kind of series that will be able to be deconstructed and analyzed in so many ways and I TOTALLY suggest watching this. 9/10
Special Features:
THERE ARE NONE! That was extremely surprising and disappointing because a show like this deserves a lot more supplemental material.
