‘Nocturne’ Review: Liev Schreiber and Stephen Graham Get Handcuffed by Clichés in Apple’s Dully Competent Serial Killer Thriller

Of all the sins anyone might accuse Jurek Walter (Stephen Graham) of committing, failing to play his narrative role could never be one of them.

The convicted murderer is first seen inducing a man to bash in his own skull, purely through the power of persuasion. He’s so insidious that the nurses at Riverside Psychiatric warn each other not to speak to him, and so cunning that he worms his way into the misguided empathies of one of them anyway. Jurek is a master manipulator in the Hannibal Lecter mold, and Nocturne will waste no time letting you know it.

What Jurek is not, however, is anything but a master manipulator in the Hannibal Lecter mold. Nor is the rest of Nocturne, also starring Liev Schreiber and Zazie Beetz, anything but exactly what you’d expect from an Apple serial killer thriller, at least in the seven (of 10) hours sent to critics. For those who love the genre for its familiarity, that may be enough. For anyone hoping for more, it makes for a rather tedious time.

Like every other crime drama with prestige-y aspirations, Nocturne sets its roots in the woods of Pennsylvania, though it’s actually been developed by John Hlavin and created by Rowan Jaffé based on a Swedish novel by Lars Kepler.

Fairhaven is a sleepy small town like every other you’ve seen on TV, but for the string of disappearances and grisly murders that rocked the community three years prior. Or so we are told, anyway; we don’t spend enough time among the non-law-enforcement locals to get a sense of the place, and what grieving or healing might look like there.

That dark period in the hamlet’s history supposedly ended with Jurek’s capture, give or take a few painful loose ends. But when one of his suspected victims (Landon Valentin’s 12-year-old Michael) is found stumbling emaciated and half-blind into the road, the formerly cold case fires up again. Determined to find Michael’s fellow abductee and big sister, Felicia, once and for all, Fairhaven’s exhausted but kindly chief of police, Ellison (Bill Camp), calls upon every resource at his disposal.

That includes an FBI task force, led by confident yet egoless agent Quinn (Poorna Jagannathan), who breeze into town with what appears to be no preparation whatsoever. But the best weapon in Ellison’s arsenal is not technically law enforcement at all.

Jonah (Schreiber) is the former Philly PD detective who was instrumental in putting Jurek away but remains haunted by the ordeal. Like his killer archnemesis, the hero cop is a composite of genre clichés: Nocturne saddles him with not only a dead child but a dead wife and a dead partner as well, all the better to cement Schreiber’s meticulously grizzled face in an expression of pained stoicism.

Despite being retired, Jonah can’t help but get sucked back into the case he once obsessed over. And despite being well aware that he is retired, Ellison and Quinn barely put up a protest when he takes over as its de facto leader. Why would they? He’s the only investigator sharp enough to pick up on clues like the specific type of dirt found in Michael’s hair, the only one who dares ask if the case was ever really closed, the only one willing to do what it takes to nail the bastard for real this time, up to and including illegal things made slightly less illegal by the fact that he’s not officially a cop anymore.

The only wrinkle in his plan is his FBI agent goddaughter, Saga. Over Jonah’s tepid concerns about her safety, she insists on acting as the operation’s woman on the inside, getting herself admitted to Jurek’s facility as a schizophrenic patient. As played by Beetz, Saga is easily the most compelling element of Nocturne. Like her co-leads, she’s all steel, an immovable object daring an unstoppable force to come at her. But Beetz also lets us see Saga think her way through problems, or shake off flashes of emotion. These little beats make her appear dimensional in ways stolid Jonah and icy Jurek never do.

Otherwise, Nocturne sticks to business as usual. Like most Apple productions, it’s crisply shot (Tim Van Patten directs the first two episodes), cutting between the institutional concrete of Riverside and the down-home loveliness of the town beyond. As in so many other shows about nabbing serial killers, there are stakeouts and shootouts; a mysterious recurring symbol; a sad wife (Lily Rabe in flashbacks) pleading with her cop husband to let the case go; creepy drawings by a traumatized child that turn out to be significant clues.

Enough of its reveals feel clever in the moment, though a few seem less plausible on second thought — both in the sense of “How did no one figure this out earlier?” and in the sense of “How would that even work?” (There are also several instances in which I kept waiting for reveals that never came, assuming that the facts presented on the screen had to be too boringly straightforward not to be hiding something.)

Combine the evenly paced storyline with some decent performances — aside from Beetz’s standout turn, Schreiber is reliable if unsurprising as Jonah, Graham combines hulking physicality and soft-spoken calculation to reasonably unsettling effect, and Camp and Jagannathan make the most of thin roles as Jonah’s cheerleaders — and the series is generally watchable, if never totally gripping.

It’s just not very distinctive. As I watched, my mind kept drifting to all the other narratives it kind of resembles: It’s Mare of Easttown without the warmth, Task without the earnestness, Silence of the Lambs without the tense ambience. I was also reminded at various points of The Terror: Devil in Silver and Cape Fear and Black Bird and Dept. Q and — well, I could go on, but you get the point.

Nocturne hinges on the idea that Jurek and Jonah are exceptional individuals: Jurek a villain so brilliant it’s practically a superpower, and Jonah an investigator so dogged and righteous he can do what the rest of local and federal law enforcement cannot. But while worshipping at the altar of their ingenuity, the show only betrays its lack of same.

Original Article on Hollywood Reporter