Saturday, May 24, 2014

TV review - "Ray Donovan - Season 1" (2013) ***

Liev Schreiber is given as splashy a starring vehicle as anything ever concocted for Clark Gable in his MGM heydey - he plays the title role, a tough as guts fixer who works in LA, solving people's problems Michael Clayton style.

Actually solving client issues occupies about 10% of the show - the rest of the time Ray deals with his family, especially his goalbird dad (Jon Voight) fresh out of the pen, but also his wife, two kids, three brothers and other associates.

It's all well acted - the cast also includes Elliot Gould, James Woods and Rosanna Arquette - and made with intelligence but was a bit grim and all the sexual abuse and molestation surviving got me down after a while. I wanted less family angst and sexual abuse victim trauma and more cool stuff. I'm not hanging out for season 2.

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