Reviewing Movies

As I got around to watching Season Five it was learned that the show will be discontinued after number Six, the present on-air season. On paper a show about a US Marshall raised by a backwoods hill-billy racketeer in Kentucky who uses his local knowledge to fight organized crime sounds rather pedestrian. As Raylan Givens Timothy Oliphant uses his acting chops and a suave mien to bring life to an old-style quick-draw lawman. The ensemble cast and continuing plot lines draw the audience into a show that is difficult to stop watching. The cast of characters and the actors who portrait them continue to be well-drawn and performed. This season we meet Dewey Crow’s Florida Cousins and the fifteen-year-old Kendall, a doe-eyed criminal-in-training. Ava’s sojourn through the prison system provides Boyd with an interesting sub-plot. As usual it is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys here, rarely are situations black and white. Raylan’s sometime partner Timothy, the Afghan sniper,  and Boyd’s henchman Jimmy bring handsome good looks and straight-man qualities to a cast that too often appears inbred and lacking intelligence. Underlying criminal menace is never cause for anything but polite, if sometime exaggerated, cordiality here. The show may have sexual content, nudity, and violence but proves this can be done convincingly without undue foul language.