DOPE THIEF
Starring: Brian Tyree Henry, Wagner Moura, Marin Ireland, Amir Arison, Nesta Cooper, Kate Mulgrew, Ving Rhames, Dustin Nguyen, and Liz Caribel Sierra
Creator: Peter Craig
AMARÚ
Brian Tyree Henry's and Wagner Moura’s charisma are the sole reason I continued watching Dope Thief. This crime drama is set during Covid years, and it feels like it was made during them, too. Henry’s character is set up as a careful hustler, then subsequently makes dumb decisions that, admittedly, allows his comedic timing with Moura to flourish, but this story isn’t set up to be funny. It’s written as the dark cat-and-mouse game we see in Marin Ireland’s B-plot, which feels like an entirely separate show. I wanted to like this so much more, but its weird construction never cohesively puts together its disparate parts.
QUENTIN
Dope Thief is a middling series despite Brian Tyree Henry’s best efforts to make it something more. The biggest problem is that you’re forced to root for two small-time loser criminals as they run from faceless big-time criminals, which is a proven formula but almost exclusively in comedies. Thief plays it too seriously to earn complete buy-in, including several subplots that don’t add much (Marin Ireland’s Mina is wholly unnecessary) and shallow character traits that mistake “descriptions” for genuine depth (making Wagner Moura’s Manny an addict, for example). Still, as usual, Henry holds your attention, but it’s probably for the best that this is a miniseries.
