The Wire - Series 3 - Complete (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Grity US drama
Disadvantages:	The bc are showing them to close together

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

80% of the recent so-called US sub prime debt was run up by black Americans, the last group in America to be cynically offered credit to keep those erroneous bonuses coming in for those greedy bankers, the city of Baltimore (65% black) and the setting for 'The Wire' a classic case study of who's bearing the brunt of the consequences, that contrast between poverty and wealth in Baltimore one of the reasons why the show is so authentic, that financial, criminal and political aphartied of the city dissected here through David Simons brilliant script. The banks knew the black families didn't have a cent but offered them 110% mortgages at high interest rates they could never pay back. City authorities are suing the Wells Fargo Bank for the so called 'ghetto loans' because they now have to pick up the pieces now the bubble has burst all over the streets. But that same city has also made money from the sub-prime corruption over recent years, the core narrative of series three.

Denying black Americans credit over the years when they really needed it has resulted in 80% illiteracy rates in the elderly in the Deep South alone and not much better anywhere else, why cities like Baltimore are riddled with drugs, depravation and craven corruption, the concurrent themes of The Wire, and so easy to exploit through great television writing. Maybe Obama can turn things around but it seems that drugs and crime go far deeper than the sub-prime, the core being political corruption, the theme of the excellent third series of Americas greatest cop show.

The Wire is cool because it doesn't hide behind political correctness and tells it as it is, just as many bad black guys selling drugs as there are lazy white guys in the cops, but not simply suggesting one lot is good and one lot bad. Everyone down the line is earning off the drug profits in someway and a considerable chunk is ending up funding the senators and city mayors who are turning a blind eye to the trade where possible so to sustain it.

The excellent first series looked at life down on the street and the dynamic between dealers and cops whilst series two wasn't as strong as it drifted off to the Baltimore docks to look at corruption and petty pilfering there in the mafia and unions, where as series three is back on the street and the politics of the city and its relationship to crime is dissected more. It's not so much the corrupt nature of the beast here but the rules that have to be bent to get things done, which to others may seem corrupt. The drugs are never going away so let's see how they can benefit the city.

-The Plot-

Lieutenant Daniels (Lance Reddick) now has a permanent unit - the same faces from series one and two - assigned to the rising crime rate in the drug trade in the city. Detective McNulty (Dominic Green) is still lighting fires and not putting them out in the department in his reckless arrogant way. Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) is reeling after the city have demolished the towers that were bringing in his and 'street' brother Avon Barksdales core drug profits and has resulted in a truce with a rival drug gang and a deal to share corners and better product, already causing obvious tensions. But the Baltimore police don't like where the dealers have decamped to and so retiring officer Major Howard Colvin (Robert Wisdom) decides he's going to end his career by having one last hurrah by tackling the city's drug culture by pushing it into a derelict cul-de-sac. Just as in the 1960s the law that you couldn't drink on the street was bypassed by the compromise of a simple brown paper bag to put the booze in, Colvin plans to make a legal dealing area in the city to contain the drug chaos, so bringing down the deaths of innocent citizens pushing up the record murder count.

The prominent new characters are Dennis 'Cutty' Wise (Chad L Coleman), a recent lifer on parole that has to choose between going straight or back into the gang and Tommy Carcetti (Aiden Gillan), an ambitious young city councillor who decides to run for mayor, traditionally a black appointment in Baltimore so an uphill battle to say the least, hiring feisty campaign man-eater Theresa D'Agostino (Brandy Burre), who McNulty soon jumps. But when Avon Barksdale is released early and they fail to recruit the west sides top drug dealer, Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) into the cooperative the cities drug gangs get trigger happy and the chaos reboots, which means plenty of snitching to be done to the cops by drug addict Bubbles (Andre Royo).

Stringer is now the legit face of the gang, a 'suit' investing their proceeds of crime into riverside property, while Avon feels left out of the action after being inside for so long and so lashes out to let people know he's back. But when a drive-bye goes wrong the whole of the Baltimore Police Department come down hard on all the cities crime gangs, all the police departments expected to make mass arrests or heads will roll.

-The conclusion-

Where as series one was five out of five as you enjoyed the three dimensional characters and class and race boundaries being set out, the show has gently plateaud. There's no sense of Sopranos menace anymore and the pace of the thing has slowed right down by series three. The cops seem to be able to do pretty much what they want without being sanctioned and Dominic West's maverick cop role is losing charisma, more a lethario than a detective. And how come the drug dealers never spot the surveillance cop cars blatantly parked just across the road? It's almost comical at times that they don't see them.

Examining each aspect of Baltimore's legal, criminal and corrupt society is great drama, don't get me wrong, but it feels in the doldrums right now and sticking it on late when no ones watching seems a cop out(excuse the pun). If it was on at 9pm on BBC2 I feel I could get into it more. I also feel things are getting a bit soap opera like they did in 'Lost', Cedric Daniels character jumping into bed with McNultys old squeeze in the sexy legal liaison Rhonda Pearlman, and McNulty bedding just about every women he speaks to, very telenovella, gratuitous sex at any opportunity. McNultys excellent character from series one has just become two dimensional eye-candy for the ladies. At times it feels like the old Wire is being pushed aside and a new show is taking its place.

It's still the HBO drama to see though and I'm enjoying all the box-sets and the episodes I missed on the BBC. Life on Mars was fun but I don't think we can touch American police drama and if you haven't got into this yet then make the move. The box-sets are cheap in HMV in their summer sale and series three; four and five are on the BBC so you have no excuse.

Summary: HBO do it again..