Jeffrey Wright delivers an exceptional performance in HBO's O.G., but the TV movie is "not quite built to hold it"

Variety

"The actor shows us new things about the plight of the individuals caught up in mass incarceration and given too few resources for life after, even as the film itself deals in heavy-handed and often obvious notes," says Daniel D'Addario of the TV movie filmed in an actual Indiana prison and cast with real inmates. He adds: "Wright’s gifts at showing Louis’s knowledge as to how to shift his face moment-to-moment elides the fact that little that’s written for his character transcends prison-movie cliché, and as such pushes us away from understanding him better. It is welcome to see Wright onscreen in any context, and art confronting our national inability to support the prisoners we’re notionally meant to be reforming is needed. All that makes O.G. falling short of finding much new to say, or new ways to say it, feel like a missed opportunity."

ALSO:

• The shame of O.G. is that it’s not an HBO series so we can't enjoy its slow-burn storytelling
• Jeffrey Wright describes what it's like to film with real inmates