It’s a happy round in the small private plane, the FBI boys and Jimmy Keene, the convict they are supposed to transfer to prison in Springfield, they chat about which movie is better, “Rob Roy” or “Braveheart”, it works historical accuracy and Jessica Lange. But then the colleague Lauren McCauley interrupts and calls Jimmy to her, she has final orders, hints, warnings for him. Because Jimmy, a smart guy, but sentenced to 120 months in prison for possession of drugs and weapons with no chance of parole, has a special assignment in Springfield. He is supposed to elicit information, possibly a confession, from another prisoner – secretly for the FBI. A dangerous assignment, because spies are not welcomed among prisoners.
When presented with a photo of one of the missing girls, Larry asks: May I touch her?
Larry Hall is suspected of killing some girls, but none of these murders have been proven against him. And none of the buried bodies were ever found. He is being held in maximum security in Springfield but is on appeal with a good chance of being released soon. Paul Walter Hauser is Larry, he played Richard Jewell for Clint Eastwood, the man suspected of carrying out a bombing at the Atlanta Olympics. Larry is a lot bulkier than Jewell and a lot sleepier and slower, each word seeming to be forced out of his mouth in pain. Everything is retarded, he makes time freeze. He has already made various confessions and then retracted them. Raised next to a cemetery, he has often staged historical spectacles recreating famous moments and battles of the American Civil War. He suffers from insomnia and when presented with a photograph of one of the missing girls he asks: May I touch her?
The smart boy and the lonely pervert is an unusual constellation that star author Dennis Lehane creates for the six-part Apple series In with the Devil (original title Blackbird) is based on a true story, but he turns it into a breathtaking relationship story about two men who are suddenly confronted with their own abysses. And which is particularly dark and oppressive because it is staged very simply and unspectacularly, and takes time for each individual character. The moments between Jimmy and Lauren McCauley, who negotiated the deal with him (in a dentist’s room!) are exciting as McCauley is always one step ahead of him. “In prison,” she explains, “I’ll be a kind of safety line for you, when I visit you, act like I’m your girl, kiss me, stretch my butt.” Sepideh Moafi and Tarin Egerton (“Rocketman”) play it precisely and very sophisticated.
Dennis Lehane has traced the traumas that are destroying America’s families from within in many novels, they were portrayed by Martin Scorsese (shutter Island) or Clint Eastwood (Mystic River) filmed. Ray Liotta, who died a few weeks agoplays in In with the Devil Jimmy’s father, he was a cop and it hurts him that he didn’t put his son on the right track. An unusual, very intense role for Liotta, one of his last. He was a bad father, he says of himself, “I didn’t do my job”. While the son is in prison, he suffers a stroke.
“What you’re doing isn’t police work,” says one of McCauley’s cop colleagues, “it’s fucking desperation.” And the insanity keeps growing, as always with Dennis Lehane, whose books often end with the collapse of a strong self. Confronted with Larry’s loneliness, Jimmy suddenly experiences his own – and in the end it is his coming of age that is being told here. At McCauley’s offer on the plane about kissing and such, he leans in and murmurs, “Mind if I practice?”
In with the Devilon Apple+.
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