I do believe that the trailer and the logline of this Peter Craig (“The Town”)-penned and created miniseries misled it to be a two-hander between Brian Tyree Henry’s Ray and Wagner Moura’s Manny. In the middle of executing their con game of posing as DEA agents and robbing stash houses, they rob the biggest stash house on the East Coast and find themselves in the crossfire of multiple antagonistic groups, including the actual DEA. The miniseries, Dope Thief’s gore and violence were also misrepresented, surprising me.
I was, however, not surprised at how much Philadelphia, with its own specific idiosyncrasy, plays a heavy role in the convoluted crime drama. One look at Craig’s filmography reveals a writer very much comfortable being in the system and contributing to creating studio blockbusters, but when granted enough leeway, bringing his own personal quirks into a mostly well-trodden narrative. The pathway to ensure that both the quirks and the commercial aspects one expects from a crime comedy-drama melting pot is to not be bogged down by the convolutions. Craig instead fashions the entire story through the eyes of Raymond Driscoll (Brian Tyree Henry), resulting in Henry essaying possibly one of the meatiest roles of his career.
As Driscoll, Henry has to operate in extreme stages of bathos—be effortlessly comedic and sarcastic with a deadpan tonality, but also be utterly surprised despite the cynicism ingrained within his character at the utterly baffling scenario he finds himself in, either because of the plot or because of his controlling nature. Craig, perhaps realizing the convolution the plot inadvertently is getting into, not only allows Henry to go all out but also inserts flashback snapshots in the middle of chases or shootouts to situate the viewers into understanding Driscoll’s personal stakes.
Through his eyes, we are also introduced to a motley and complex supporting cast, that includes his best friend Manny Carvalho (Wagner Moura), his father’s girlfriend Theresa Bowers (Kate Mulgrew), who took the role of Raymond’s world-weary mother and raised him, the DEA agent Mina (Marin Ireland) who has her own axe to grind with Driscoll and Carvalho, lawyer Michelle Taylor (Nesta Cooper) who is fighting to get compassionate release for Driscoll’s father out of prison on account of his cancer diagnosis.
And of course Bartram Driscoll (Ving Rhames), the drug-addict convict father of Raymond, currently serving time in prison, and who shares a highly contentious relationship with Raymond. You couple that with Driscoll’s own checkered past, with drug use leading to an unforeseen accident, or his battle with sobriety, and you have a highly complicated, sometimes unlikeable but heavily compelling character stuck in a situation way over his head.
The show too realizes the value of a character like Driscoll, which is why even broadly comic characters like Manny, or actually valuable characters capable of providing context to the plot like Mina, get the short shrift for multiple episodes. Even as flashback episodes of Mina or meatier scenes for Manny are afforded to the audience for realizing character exploration being undertaken, the central focus is always on Driscoll. That is not a bad choice of storytelling per se, but it leaves the viewer with a choice.
If one takes “Dope Thief” as a wild, violent personal journey of Raymond Driscoll as he navigates a troublesome situation that threatens to destroy his life apart, the show manages to succeed far more on that front. On the contrary, if one wishes to follow the convoluted crime drama whereby a major alliance of multiple organizations finds their business in peril and thus is hell-bent on taking Driscoll and anyone within his vicinity down, they would be disappointed, as the plot only starts to take shape within the final three episodes, with a resolution that invariably feels somewhat rushed. It doesn’t help that the time jumps contribute both to the passage of time but also take away from the immediacy of a violent sequence that would lead to a major cliffhanger in one episode.
However, the best aspects of the show are in the moments and in some key details. How Craig utilizes the COVID-19 pandemic both as a reality occurring around the characters and as a key inciting incident of the plot is fascinating as a throughline. How music becomes a connective tissue of the disbelief surrounding the characters as they find themselves in the violent situations, or how it associates core emotions of the past and present, is again an interesting use of the same.
How Henry and even Moura use humor, either slapstick or broadly comedic, is not just to provide flashes of humor in a mostly grim setting, but also to provide a healthy dose of verisimilitude, which is also impeccable in its balancing act. Moura especially, even though his character isn’t the most well-developed (a criticism that could be afforded to almost all the major supporting characters with notable exceptions), provides a wonderful performance, with crackling and believable chemistry between him and Henry.
I would have to state very emphatically that late-era Ridley Scott might have delivered his finest directorial work with the pilot of this show, in how he efficiently sets up the world with all the essential details, as well as providing a blueprint for the suspense and violence that should be expected from a series opener.
It would behoove me to not highlight the directorial prowess in staging some of the more chaotic and gruesome action sequences, especially the one outside the hospital in episode 6, or the drug-induced hallucination within that same episode. These highlights do offset the very legitimate complaint of a story that is too short and feels stretched to be an actual miniseries and could have actually been a very efficient and well-made mid-budget crime drama film. But as a miniseries, it is an engaging watch, anchored by a very strong lead performance, even though it is too convoluted at times for its own good.
This review is based on the full eight episode miniseries. The series will debut on Apple TV+ on the 14th of March, with the first two episodes, with the rest of the episodes dropping weekly.
