'Gritty, unflinching': Dennis Lehane's serial-killer drama 'Black Bird' hits Apple TV+

If you’re going to construct a miniseries in which the FBI matchmakes a convicted Chicago drug dealer with a suspected murdering child sexual predator, you’d want to place it firmly in the hands of a writer as gritty and unflinching as former Marshfield resident Dennis Lehane. With “Black Bird,” he rivetingly strays far from his familiar Boston locales (“Gone Baby Gone,” “Mystic River”) to the house of horrors that is Missouri’s Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, home to the nation’s most mentally disturbed inmates, one of whom stands an excellent chance of landing back on the streets – unless the feds can extract a confession.

This is where the bureau performs its own production of “Hello Dolly” by tapping charismatic James “Jimmy” Keene to woo the psychotic Larry Hall. The plan is to chat him up, gain his trust and then persuade him to reveal where he’s buried up to 15 missing teenage girls. In return, Jimmy gets his 10-year sentence commuted. No sweat, right? So Jimmy thinks – until he’s drawn deeper and deeper into the depraved mind of a sociopathic serial killer whose expertise in gravedigging and cleaning products has enabled him to maintain a spotless record for years. 

'Star Wars': ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ actor Ewan McGregor heading to Fan Expo Boston

The performances by Taron Egerton (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”) as Jimmy and Paul Walter Hauser (“Cruella”) as Larry are Emmy-caliber. But it’s Lehane’s writing that’s most gripping, crafting his fact-based creation into a slow-burn character study that chillingly exposes the precariously thin line Jimmy and Larry walk between human and monster. Egerton, a long way from his BAFTA-nominated impersonation of Elton John in “Rocketman,” is at his best when it dawns on Jimmy that he’s just like Larry in his treatment of women as mere objects to satisfy his sexual desires. At least Larry remembers their names.

It makes Jimmy squirm, looking into the dead eyes of this consummate misogynist and seeing himself. Egerton transfuses that discomfort to the extent you’re no longer sure who’s more evil. The clincher is in how effortlessly Egerton places you in the shoes of a cocky criminal whose bravado is steadily depleted by his growing fears of being outed in a venue where his life is meaningful to neither his fellow inmates nor the guards who refer to him only as “convict.”

'A Beautiful Noise': Will Swenson shines bright as pop giant Neil Diamond in new musical

Rendering him even more expendable, he’s the son of an ex-cop (played brilliantly by the late Ray Liotta) who was always on the take. In his final TV appearance, Liotta flaunts his range by making a rotten dad with acute health issues the most sympathetic of the show’s rogues' gallery of deeply flawed men. He’s unafraid to drop his oft-exploited tough-guy demeanor to reveal a vulnerability capable of making his Big Jim look weak and pathetic. He’s mesmerizing. Unfortunately, there’s not nearly enough of him, one of the few blind spots in Lehane’s adaptation of the younger Keene’s memoir, “In with the Devil.”

That “devil,” of course, is Hauser’s Larry, a mentally disturbed loner sporting bushy burnsides who, when he’s not partaking in Civil War reenactments, is cruising the back roads of the rural Midwest in search of prey. Listening to Larry emotionlessly describe his M.O. to Jimmy is beyond terrifying and further proof that Hauser is a rare talent, a chameleon able to fully disappear into his every role, from true-life characters like Richard Jewell and Shawn Eckardt to fictional reprobates like the bumbling white supremacist in “BlacKkKlansman.” Here, he’s at his zenith, blood-curdling creepy one minute and childlike the next.

'The Forgiven': Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain battle privilege and morality

I could have done without his affected voice inflections, but they do emphasize the unease his Larry carries within. He’s as much a victim as the girls he kills, raised by his heartless gravedigger dad who forced him to rob the coffins of the people interred on the grounds of the cemetery where he grew up. We learn Larry has a twin in Gary (an excellent Jake McLaughlin), a young man wracked by guilt over a fetal defect that left Larry damaged and him normal.

It’s Gary who chief investigators Brian Miller (a never-finer Greg Kinnear) of the Indiana State Police and FBI agent Lauren McCauley (Sepideh Moafi) believe can provide the proof of Larry’s guilt should Jimmy fail. Moafi is especially powerful in portraying McCauley as fearless and determined, taking guff off no one, especially Jimmy, who initially balks at the offer she’s dangling. She’s ferociously advocating not just for the dead, but for all materialized women. And Moafi makes it stick with an attitude born of intelligence.

The show, which premiered on Apple TV+ this past weekend, is a must for fans of true crime and Lehane himself. In many ways, “Black Bird” is representative of his fascination with men gone astray, but it’s also unique in that it’s not the deed so much as what precipitated it that proves most impactful.

We are all a summation of the thousands of encounters – positive and negative – spread over a lifetime. Most of us, like Gary and Jimmy, emerge largely unscathed. But the few, like Larry, who wind up slipping through the cracks, often evolve into fiends we tend to discount until it’s too late. They’re dead inside, seeming to come alive only when they kill. Much like the alleged recent shooter in Illinois, Larry seemed harmless until he wasn’t. And he has the many innocent lives lost to prove it.

How to see 'Black Bird'

Cast: Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, Ray Liotta, Greg Kinnear, Sepideh Moafi and Jake McLaughlin

Creator: Dennis Lehane

Run time: Six 1-hour episodes

Where to watch: New episodes out Fridays through Aug. 5

Grade: A-

Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. Please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Patriot Ledger subscription. Here is our latest offer.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Taron Egerton stars Dennis Lehane's serial-killer drama 'Black Bird'