The Red Road: Season 1 (DVD) – Series Review
Cowboys and Indians or Whites and Natives. It’s always been a sensitive part of history and there’s been countless movies and series about it. The Red Road is another series that handles this matter. It takes place in the small town of Walpole, New Jersey, a short ride from the big city of New York. Just over the hill in the Lenape Mountains there’s a little community of Natives, and the two groups don’t seem to get along that well…
The Red Road starts off pretty grim. It shows natives partying, but suddenly the joy is disrupted as an old and dangerous member of the tribe decides to come back into town. It’s Phillip Kopus (Jason Momoa) and something tells them he’s up to no good. He just came out of prison for producing and dealing drugs and he’s back to build back his empire in the Lenape Mountains, home of the natives. On the other side of the spectrum, you follow Harold Jensen (Martin Henderson) and his family. Harold is a police officer in Walpole, New Jersey, investigating the disappearance of a missing New York University student who’s last been seen near the Lenape Mountains.
Complicating the matters even further, Harold seems to be having some family issues as his daughter Rachel (Allie Gonino) gets into a relationship with Junior (Kiowa Gordon) of the native tribe. Her mother Jean (Julianne Nicholson) isn’t having any of it and the situation is about to drive the family apart as she goes into a tantrum in order to make her daughter stay away from him. One day, Jean didn’t find Rachel home and in another one of her worked up moments, she tries to find her but then a shocking tragedy takes place that will affect everyone involved…
Overall, the story flows very quickly but is pretty good nonetheless. However, the episodes give you either a lot of information to process or too little. Sometimes you’ll have to rewind a couple of minutes just to understand what’s going on, even then it’s hard at times to understand what the writers are hinting at. Continuing, the first two episodes are rather boring, but that’s to be expected as the story has to be set before anything can happen. Also, sometimes after watching an episode and then looking at the plot summary, it usually looks like you’ve missed half the episode but the problem is that you’re simply not getting enough information in order to really get what’s going on. Maybe they tried to cram too much information into the episodes they had, or maybe they simply expected a “smarter” audience.
The acting performance of all the lead actors is very convincing. Phillip Kopus is played by the one and only Jason Momoa (from Game of Thrones) and the role is perfectly fit for him. He plays an intimidating, dangerous drug producer and dealer and brings his role with great execution. Harold Jensen (known from The Ring) also fits his role as police officer perfectly. It almost seems like the perfect role for him as he looks like the everyday cop you see in all of the movies. Things get even better when Philip and Harold clash together, bringing a true spectacle to the scene. Further there’s Harold’s wife Julianne, who very much looks like she actually has schizophrenia and brings her role exceptionally well.
The Red Road: Season 1 is brought on two DVD’s, three episodes each. There’s tons of extras for you to watch once you finish DVD two. You can access content like crew commentary or a “Meet the characters” section where the lead actors give some more explanation about the role they’re playing. There’s also an “Inside Job” section which gives you some more information about how things happen behind the scene. Here you’ll see a couple of people talking about the production, like a director, an executive producer, a production designer and more. Last but not least, there’s the “Behind The Screen” section which will give you some of that much needed information that you might have missed or misinterpreted during the episodes themselves.
Conclusion
The Red Road brings another perspective on the age old “Whites versus Natives” story. Both parties have some very good actors working for them and have equally important roles as their fate is interwoven with each other. The actors bring their roles very convincingly and execute them to perfection, making every scene with the lead actors a delight. The only problems are that it’s a bit slow at first, combined with the fact that it’s very hard to understand what’s going on in the first few episodes. However, it gets way better as you start making your way towards the end. Additionally, there’s quite a bit of bonus content for you to go through including a good explanation of what really happened during the episodes.
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