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The Night Of- HBO original series

11K views 287 replies 50 participants last post by  mgkdragn 
#1 ·
Co-created by writer/director Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and author Richard Price (Clockers, Lush Life), and based on the British drama Criminal Justice, The Night Of is a classic slow-burn murder mystery which is getting excellent reviews...some are comparing it to Season 1 of True Detective and even The Wire...the plot follows Nasir "Naz" Khan (Riz Ahmed), a Muslim college student who lives with his parents in Jackson Heights, Queens...on the fateful night, he takes his father's cab without permission in order to attend a party, gets lost, and reluctantly ends up with a female passenger named Andrea after she jumps into the car and ignores his protests about being off-duty...long story short- she ends up brutally murdered and Naz is the main suspect

the show is getting praised for everything from its gritty NYC setting, excellent cast and edge of your seat storytelling...anchoring the show is John Turturro as attorney John Stone, who represents Naz...it's a role that was initially inhabited by James Gandolfini in the show's original 2013 pilot before his untimely death...

The Night Of premieres Sunday at 9/8c on HBO...it's an 8 part miniseries

 
#3 ·
I watched Episode 1 and liked it well enough to convince me to stick around for a while. I had to suspend belief big time to swallow that a very bright college student could get himself into so much trouble in such a short time. Still, the performances are terrific, particularly Riz Ahmed, as Naz the exceedingly unlucky college kid, Bill Camp, as a tired NYPD detective, and John Turturro, as an equally tired defense lawyer. I am also encouraged by the uniformly favorable reviews the show has received. Time will tell, I guess.
 
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#4 ·
I thought it was well done. I don't have a problem with how he got himself into trouble just that he kept on digging. Also, he was smart/dumb enough to try to cover his perceived tracks then completely oblivious to the need to keep his trap shut until he talked to a lawyer or even ask for one. I have a prediction:

Unless they bury the evidence, the knife wound on the back of her hand will be what gets him off. It's not defensive. There is a mark on the table with her blood that will match. That will make much of the rest of his story plausible. The blood on him, the blood on the stair railing, etc.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Yes, good series potential. Based on a BBC series and from IMDB, which lacks any tech details so far, looks like mostly British production. Couldn't help but recall while watcing, as the protagonist seems to slowly slip down a drain, of a recent article about actual, not fictional, lives routinely ruined--in the thousands--by miscarriages of justice. The NY Times piece, "How a $2 Roadside Drug Test Sends Innocent People to Jail," is sprinkled with lots of alarming data. It deals with how the drug test messed up one woman's life., while outlining the bigger picture. Hope someone makes a movie of it, too. -- John
 
#6 ·
Yes, good series potential. Based on a BBC series and from IMBD, which lacks any tech details so far, looks like mostly British production. Couldn't help but recall while watcing, as the protagonist seems to slowly slip down a drain, of a recent article about actual, not fictional, lives routinely ruined--in the thousands--by miscarriages of justice. The NY Times piece, "How a $2 Roadside Drug Test Sends Innocent People to Jail," is sprinkled with lots of alarming data. It deals with how the drug test messed up one woman's life., while outlining the bigger picture. Hope someone makes a movie of it, too. -- John
I don't see anything resembling a miscarriage of justice up to this point. Naz is in his precarious predicament largely due to his own actions and the preliminary evidence against him is pretty strong. Heck, that might be an understatement.

The biggest mistake he made was not calling the police the moment he turned on the light in her room. Followed by breaking back into the brownstone and taking the knife knife on the way out. It looked like it wasn't moved prior to that and probably isn't the murder weapon.
 
#9 ·
Don't check IMDB for the series. I knew I recognized the actor playing his father and couldn't remember from where (The Separation), but in checking I saw that certain characters only appear in a certain number of the episodes, which was a bit of a spoiler for me.

The tension was great for both my wife and myself watching. We foolishly watched on demand a week early though, so it's going to be rough waiting for that second ep unless they add that to HBO OD early as well...
 
#21 ·
The plumpish middle-aged neighbor murdered the young woman. For some reason they briefly zoomed in to a dark mark on his right hard doing the night-time initial investigation. Don't know how he got into her apartment--maybe he's a locksmith. -- John
Without any evidence my best guess was the friend of the guy detained as a witness. His buddy really stared long and hard at Nazir and Andrea. At the time I thought he was about to pounce on them. He wasn't to be seen when his friend was questioned by the police.
 
#23 ·
I think the murderer is going to turn out to be the guy they ran into at the gas station. He asked her if she wanted "to be the next passenger in my car," and when they pulled back, it looked like it was a hearse. As soon as they pulled out of the station, he started his car and seemed to follow them out onto the road.

That's my solution.

SMK
 
#24 ·
I think the murderer is going to turn out to be the guy they ran into at the gas station. He asked her if she wanted "to be the next passenger in my car," and when they pulled back, it looked like it was a hearse. As soon as they pulled out of the station, he started his car and seemed to follow them out onto the road.

That's my solution.

SMK
He also picked up her cigarette when he did that and showed it to her and put it out on her window, seeming to indicate he was talking about lung cancer. Or he was so mad she flicked a cigarette out the window he was going to kill her. :)
 
#25 ·
I'm quite interested after watching last night, but it has that annoying TV/movie contrivance where NO ONE EXPLAINS THEMSELVES and sustains confusion/ambiguity for longer than necessary.

By the time Naz got into the room with Det. Box, he should have done a little more 'splainin for himself. "I was trying to go to this party, I took my dad's cab, this woman got into the cab because I didn't know how to run the "off duty" light, I don't know Manhattan very well, she was mesmerizing and we ended up at her place. She gave a me a pill before we got there, we had drinks and she played this crazy game with a knife, and I accidentally cut her hand when she insisted that I try. We had sex, and later I woke up in her kitchen, confused. I went to say goodbye to her, and found her murdered in her room. I have no idea how it happened, even though that sounds crazy. I panicked and took the knife with me because I knew my blood was all over it. And lots of other places, too.

Now, whether that memory hole is in fact true, or it simply wasn't shown to us viewers remains to be seen, but it's still stupid that he hasn't tried to make an explanation (even a ridiculous one).
 
#28 ·
An interesting cinematography technique for such a dismal topic. Extended shots of rain puddles, for example, or a long panoramic shot of a prisoner bus heading for Rikers Island. Slow pans inside precincts and Manhattan prisons, while cops and lawyers exchange barbed banalities. As suggested earlier it's a slow artsy video trip down a drain, likely bringing in the Rikers guard-prisoner brutality exposed in a recent NY Times series. -- John
 
#30 ·
I loved Episode 2 and am now fully committed to the show. The performances of Bill Camp, as Detective Sergeant Box, and John Turturro, as the lawyer Jack Stone, continue to blow me away. The scene on the subway in which Stone scratched his eczema ridden foot with a chopstick and the woman sitting next to him got up in disgust and moved away made me laugh out loud. Jack's social skills leave something to be desired. :)
 
#33 ·
I had forgotten about Ahmed's appearance in Nightcrawler. Gyllenhaal's wonderful performance as a skinny weird crime videographer made me just about forget about everybody else. Great movie!
 
#47 ·
I got the same vibe from EP1-2. Except for Det. Box. I actually think he's having some trouble with the case. He has to go where the evidence points him with the indictment but... I'm having a hard time deciding what way this show is going to go and that's a really good thing.
 
#39 ·
Really enjoyed the first 2 episodes. I was thinking of cancelling my HBO sub after GOT season but this, Vice Principals and upcoming Westworld have piqued my interest.

Any idea when HBO will embrace 2016 and start offering streaming in 4K?
 
#42 ·
Yeah, the show's cast is filled with terrific New York actors. Bill Camp, who plays Detective Sergeant Box, was nominated for a Tony this year for his performance on Broadway in a revival of The Crucible.
 
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