![]() Television Church members decry TV portrait of Mormon life: ‘It’s designed to make us look alien’ The dialogue says just what it needs to without ever feeling skimpy and when a character occasionally does go off on a florid tangent, or the production feels self-consciously arty - as when Joel Grey’s former senior spook tells Harper of having read his New York Times obituary as he paints a picture in an otherwise empty mansion room, a scene right out of Orson Welles - its aim, at least, is high. ![]() ![]() And yet there is is almost nothing extraneous. The leisurely pace of the series’ bucolic opening is maintained as the adventure unfolds scenes develop slowly, allowing you to get to know the characters and helping to make sense of the relationships. The soundtrack is limited to occasional mournful strings the action sequences are unencumbered by music and are, for the genre, brutally realistically and realistically brutal, and Chase does not walk away unscathed. With its opening two episodes directed by Jon Watts (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”), “The Old Man” succeeds through elegant understatement, from the cinematography to the acting, not doing too much, not telling you how to feel or even always whom to trust. Indeed, the elements here are in and of themselves not exactly unfamiliar, and “The Old Man” succeeds by concentrating on character and character relationships - this is a thriller with a richer than usual emotional foundation - and making sure that everything is done to perfection the series is as finely turned as a Japanese vase. Bonilla), who might be a force for less good. (“Any more you send at me,” he announces, “I’m sending back in bags anyone you send at my kid, I’m sending back in pieces.”) Monitoring his flight are Harold Harper (an admirably contained John Lithgow), an assistant FBI director with whom he has history (the series might plausibly be titled “The Old Men”) Lithgow’s assistant, agent Angela Adams ( Alia Shawkat - “as you’ve never seen her,” I want to say) who seems a force for good and agent Raymond Waters (E.J. It is clear too that Chase is some sort of master agent, who will not be pulled back into wherever he has got out from. (Hitchcock went down this road frequently.) This is clear from the official trailer, if we’re talking spoilers, which also promises international intrigue. Eventually, we learn that Dan Chase ( Jeff Bridges) is a man with a past and that the whole point of this story is that the past, buried for decades, is about to catch up with him - to the past’s peril.Ĭhase will leave Vermont, which brings him to the door of Zoe McDonald ( Amy Brenneman), a divorced woman from whom he rents a room and who will be in this story for a while longer, possibly for keeps. But suddenly, there are tin cans strung together to make an alarm, a gun and a fight. For a good while, we might be watching the story of a small-town Vermont widower playing with his dogs, talking with or exchanging phone messages with a daughter, remote and unseen, worrying about the possibility of cognitive decline. “The Old Man,” premiering Thursday on FX, gives up its secrets slowly - more slowly than I will, should you care to turn to the sports page. ![]()
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