Sneaky Pete Season 1

John Oliver said it best that Amazon Prime has so much money that they are able to create a lot of original series on their streaming service and not too many people have heard of much less seen. How else do you explain the existence of the show Goliath, a show nobody has ever seen. NOBODY. 

But I have decided to venture into Amazon Prime from time to time mainly when there is a lot of hype over the show, or if I'm really, REALLY bored. This is what got me through the first season of the well performed but really slow Man in the High Castle. And it was a very similar situation that brought me to Sneaky Pete. It was a show that I started to see advertisement for online, it was starting to gain some popularity, and most of all, I figured out that Bryan Cranston was in it. I was sold.

Sneaky Pete follows the story of a con man by the name of Marius Josipovic (played by Giovanni Ribisi). He's been in prison for the past three years and he's just about to get out. The entire time he's been listening to his cell mate, a man by the name of Pete Murphy (played by Ethan Embry) tell him stories about his childhood in Bridgeport Connecticut with his grandparents.

Marius doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to them until he's about to be released and he is tipped off that a gangster by the name of Vince Lonigan (played by Bryan Cranston) is looking for him and he believes that Marius owes him one hundred thousand dollars. He expects to get that money or he is going to start to take it out on Marius's brother Eddie (played by Michael Drayer) who works in his underground casino.

Thinking quickly, Marius skips town and goes to Bridgeport Connecticut, takes on his cell mate's identity of Pete Murphy and goes to visit his grandparents.

Otto and Audrey Bernhardt (played by Peter Gerety and Margo Martindale) own a bail bond business with their granddaughter and Pete's cousin Julia Bowman (played by Marin Ireland). Marius also runs into Pete's other cousins Taylor (played by Shane Mcrae) a local cop in Bridgeport, and Carly (played by Libe Barer) a sixteen year old high school student.

The family is a mixture of skeptical and overjoyed to have their long lost cousin come and visit, all the while Marius is concocting a plan to get Vince his money back, but also pull a con for one last big score.

So at first the premise of this show is a little bit difficult to pin down. On one hand it's pretty simple, it's about a con man who is pretending to be his cell mate once he gets out of prison, but then a lot of things happen and there are a lot of moving parts, so much that you're never really sure where the show is going at certain points.

Near the end of the first episode, you kind of get the feeling that Marius is just going to be doing Bail Bond assignments with Julia and the family for the entire season, but that really doesn't happen. So just a warning, that's not the premise of the show.

The first season of the show really takes place over the course of a week that Vince give Marius to get the money to save his brother. And when I say it takes place over a week, it's almost in real time how sequential things happen. Sometimes watching this show without binge watching it can get confusing. A lot of TV shows give the impression that some time or days have past but Sneaky Pete really moves one day or two at a time

The way the show is structured is both good and bad. On one hand it feels very unique and it's not gimmick-y. They weren't setting out to make a show about the bail bond business or just a straight up con man show (although that is a big part of the show), they made it more about the characters and the things they do when they're backs are against the wall. The show has a very similar feel and atmosphere as Breaking Bad. While the premise of Breaking Bad is about a high school teacher who gets cancer and ends up cooking meth, individual episodes rarely have Walter White cooking meth. They're about the characters and their struggles. And that's what Sneaky Pete is.

The downside is that there is A LOT going on in this show. Every single character has their own storyline and while they all converge near the end, there are a couple that drag a little bit and/or just aren't as interesting as the main story. The show doesn't feel very streamlined despite being closed to a single week in this guys life.

That being said, I will say the performances from everyone are pretty good. Giovanni Ribisi is a bit of an acquired taste. He's always played a supporting or side villain role that it's definitely a change of pace seeing him lead a ten episode series. I think he does a good job but again, I think he's an acquired taste and if you don't give him enough time, you probably won't like him.

The family and the other members of the cast also are good actors. I would say the people who really stand out are the grandparents. Otto Bernhardt, the grandfather, is an especially tragic character as he recently suffered a stroke and it has caused a rift in his and Audrey's marriage. And Audrey is such a complex character that it's just entertaining all around. At first you think she's your typical nice grandma but then you delve into the history of the family and the way she treats the other people in her family through running the business and you develop complex feelings about her.

But like I said, the real reason I sucked into this show was the recurring guest role of Bryan Cranston as Vince Lonigan.

Bryan Cranston might be my favorite actor working today. No matter how slow certain parts of this show got, every time Cranston is on screen I was sucked in and paying total attention. He's got a pretty big role for the first season. I can't say whether or not he'll be in the second season and I can't help but think the show might suffer a bit if he's not.

I also enjoyed the fact that he produced the show and even directed a couple of episodes. It just works towards how talented this guy is.

But the thing that I loved the most was just the sections that Cranston basically gives himself these long monologues that are almost Shakespearean. I don't know if in the greatest context they work towards the story at all, but I could just watch Bryan Cranston deliver a monologue about Vince's time as an NYPD cop all day. He's so intimidating and threatening that he does pose a huge threat to Marius and pretty much every good guy in the show.

Would I recommend Sneaky Pete? I think so.

If you're a fan of stories about con men, kind of in the same vein as Oceans 11 and if you're also up for some gritty real crime drama in the same vein as Breaking Bad, that's basically what you get with Sneaky Pete.

It's not a perfect show and I'm figuring out more and more that Amazon Prime is really into their slow burn TV shows. I would say give it three or four episodes to marinate with you and if by that point you're not into the show, maybe Sneaky Pete isn't for you. Overall, you get some really good performances from mostly everyone involved, you get some heroes that are very unorthodox and not really great people in general, and you get a unique character driven story. It takes a little bit to get going but I think you'll enjoy yourself.

Those are my thoughts on Sneaky Pete. What did you think? Have you watched Season 1, what about season 2? Is it worth continuing? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films or TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie and TV news and reviews coming out of this blog.

See you next time!