I just finished episode 4, with the shootout.
Vince Vaughn is given occasionally cornball stuff to say, but is basically doing a good job. His character is affectless, but that's his defense mechanism. He only lets the rage out when it does what he needs it to do.
Taylor Kitsch isn't given much to work with -- I mean, his character's backstory is pretty great, and his internal tension and unwillingness to accept himself for who he is, what he has done... that's all fantastic. And then somehow all the opportunities to really dig into it are just not present. When he's responding to a situation, he's fantastic, but there just aren't enough scenes for him to push back against.
Most surprisingly, Colin Farrell doesn't really do much with his role, and Rachel McAdams can actually act. This is the best I've ever seen her act. Normally she is a complete scene killer for me, but she is completely killing it here.
All that said, as exciting and visceral as the shootout was, it felt like just as much "sound and fury." We have a build-up with Sr. Amarillo being the suspect, and then automatic weapons fire, dead cops, explosion (wtf?), dead civilians, dead bus, and then the resolution. As each of the remaining cops looks at each other and reacts to what's happened, it is entirely unclear what the director expects the audience to feel, or what this all meant. I recognize that a serialized drama starts with the assumption that we'll tune in again next time to continue the story, but we spent 15 minutes of crazed violence, only to end it with unreadable looks between the leads, signifying nothing.
It was great, last episode, seeing Fred Ward (Colin Farrell's character's father) in the lounge where the Conway Twitty lip-synch was happening. I wish that guy had gotten more work in life. Hell, I wish Remo Williams had become the series it was intended to become.
