True Grit

HBO's latest foray into original dramatic programming, the western ornery-fest "Deadwood," is an exercise in intensity. Everything's intense. The characters are intense. The language is intense. The lighting and sets are intense. Everyone looks very intensely at the camera. Characters shove their hats onto their heads with various degrees of intensity. But intensity does not a classic make.

As the network has shown through exceptional dramatic series as "Six Feet Under" and "The Sopranos," HBO knows how to let the fire cook a good plot. How many times have we been left after an episode thinking "something big's getting ready to go down." That's a great feeling. It makes you want to watch next week. It makes you wait for next week, and spend all week talking to everyone else you know who watched it about what's happening next week.

But while "Deadwood" shows signs of life, it also oozes the feeling that they're trying a little too hard. Everyone looks as if they're going to have an aneurism at any moment, and you know that little vein that pops out of your head when you get mad? It's the star of the show.

The central plotline of the story revolves around Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), an ex-sheriff who's left his badge in the dust to move with his partner to the mining town of Deadwood, where the two plan to open a hardware business and capitalize on the mining boom. And that's all fine and good. It's the American way. But Bullock comes across as the anti-Earp, brooding and seething each line effectively but with a little too much anger. Why's he so angry? He just is. Because that, as HBO wants us to believe, is how cowboys really were. But we've barely come to know Bullock, or what he stands for, or how he takes his eggs, before we're already saddled with his "man possessed" qualities. They just don't let us like him. And I'm beginning to think that's the thread here -- you're not supposed to like any of these folks.

I applaud the network's attempt here; they want to show us a different Old West, a place that was threatening, dark and full of miscreants. But "Deadwood" plays out like "The Sopranos" circa 150 years ago. Tony Soprano is a mobster, sure, but he's also a person. Sometimes he laughs, sometimes he beats people up, sometimes he sits down and watches TV. But Olyphant's Bullock, so far, doesn't do anything human. He just stares at people and hisses out his lines. And he's our hero? (A: yes, apparently, he is.)

Olyphant's supporting cast includes Keith Carradine as Wild Bill Hickok, who at least shows signs that his organic makeup is that of a human being, Ian McShane as an unscrupulous saloon/brothel-keep who's apparently just one thing: unscrupulous, and Robin Weigert as Calamity Jane Canary (who seems to be trying to play her character as tough as nails, but instead just sort of acts semi-retarded). Mix in a foppish dandy from the east, an Igor-esque hotel owner, and various others that the wardrobe department just doused in dirt, and you've got several variations on the same character. Just choose the defining characteristic -- tough or crooked?

Despite the fact that each character is either tough (read: noble...I guess), or crooked (kills whoever they want to), the cast can agree on one thing -- they're all going to swear as much as possible. Because what says tough/crooked more than gratuitous profanity? Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese take us into the world of the criminal by showing us how these people speak, which is often laden with profanity. But "Deadwood" shows us that any sentence is a good place to throw something in (how many times have you heard someone use the phrase "I damn f*cking am.") There are spots in the script where one can't even tell what the point of the sentence is. I'm as desensitized to profanity as they come, and colorful language doesn't frighten me off a bit, but as a writer, I shudder when grammar and syntax suffer because apparently a character can't speak without throwing in so many four letter words that you forget what the original sentence must have been.

"Deadwood" could have been a very interesting show; a different look at the lawlessness of the true Old West, replacing the pristine "white hats vs. black hats" genre with a realistic historical viewpoint of the frontier as a haven for thieves, murderers and would-be-millionaires. Instead, it sets its levels at "way way intense" and leaves its audience rolling its eyes -- excuse me -- it's damn f*cking eyes.