Presumed Innocent - The Burden of Proof

Presumed Innocent

Limited Series - Courtroom Drama

9 Episodes, Approx 43 mins each
Apple TV+ 

Prologue - I am not getting paid by Apple -  just sharing my frustrations 😏

Apple TV+ has been around for about 7 years now. From the beginning the platform has signed on extremely famous  actors, directors and steadily built a portfolio of very diverse and superb content. It is quite unfortunate that it's visibility is limited, but some of the best shows / limited series  in the last 3/4 years have been on this platform. Ted Lasso, See, Silo, Black Bird, Slow Horses, Severance, Foundation, Tehran, The movie  Coda even won Oscar for best film!. 

The production values of the shows, the diverse content and genre, the reference grade 4K streaming video, outstanding spatial audio and sound quality of their shows - truly world class.

The streaming platform is best known to Apple  users (who initially used to get about 3 months free, now it is only free for a week). In India - currently the service lists at 99 INR per month.  Their streaming app for the Fire TV/other devices are of very average build. Basic features like resuming/watch history does not seem to work! 

It is probably a case of someone at the top taking the streaming business seriously, because quite frankly it is unfortunate that the excellent content they produce does not have audiences because of marketing/availability issues. I will recommend taking a one month subscription of theirs to watch some of the content i listed above and will leave you to judge!

The Review of the Limited Series

Jake Gyllenhaal  , an extremely good looking and talented actor was on every director's list a few years back. His early filmography boasts of an interesting choice of films with big directors (Donnie Darko, Prisoners, Nightcrawler, Brokeback Mountain, Enemy, Nocturnal Animals being a few). Somehow in the last decade or a bit, he has fallen off the grid. Hopefully the stunning performance in this limited mini series brings him back into the radar. 

He stars as Rusty Sabich, a hot shot Chicago Deputy District Attorney,  who is charged with the murder of a female colleague Carolyn Polhemus . Rusty is married man with two teenage children and is revealed to have had a passionate affair with Carolyn, which he admitted  to his wife Barbara (Ruth Negga). 

In his corner, he has Raymond Hogan (Bill Camp) - his close friend and the Chicago DA to defend him. Representing the state is his rival Tommy Molto ( Peter Sarsgaard), who is jealous of Rusty's success and extremely motivated to bring him to justice.

As the investigation proceeds, shocking revelations unfurl .  Rusty continues to strongly defend his innocence  despite the circumstances and additional evidence pointing strongly towards his conviction. Tommy Molto throws everything at Rusty, to try and convince the jury in the state's favour. Did Rusty do it? Does he get away with it? 

Gyllenhaal is breathtaking in his performance. Stoic and sensitive as a family man, a complete opposite in the courtroom and confrontations with Tommy Molto. He usually has that one scene in most of his roles,  when he goes into full rage mode (recall the one in Nightcrawler ). He does not dissapoint here as well. 

Bill Camp is the steady,  his character not being very different from the HBO limited series The Night Of  (except he was a cop there). Peter Sarsgaard does such a good job that you actually hate Tommy Molto, which is a great compliment to the actor.

The pacing of the show is feverish, it is largely well edited ( except I do not know why there had to be a forced infidelity angle for Barbara! ) The cinematography (specially the close ups) is terrific. Overall, this is a well made and  extremely well acted courtroom drama .

Ps:- While i was reading about this show, i also discovered that the great Alan J Pakula had made a movie of the same name starring Harrison Ford in 1990.