Peter Craig parlayed his writing credit from 2022’sThe Batmaninto a grittycrime thriller on Apple TV+— this time without the capes.Dope Thiefhas all the typical elements of a show with a high ceiling: great actors, a legendary producer, and a showrunner driven by the writing. For most of the show, all those things are on display, but not in the context of two guys posing as cops robbing drug dealers. While the ceiling remains intact, you might find yourself wondering what’s stoppingDope Thieffrom breaking through it. The answer is that it’s about the aftermath, not the joyride.
When Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) meet, they are mere children heading to prison. But the bond they share now is unbreakable, and the hustle couldn’t be more brazen. Posing as DEA agents, they rob dealers and get away before anyone is the wiser — until they get a tip about a meth lab outside their territory.
Despite performing their fake DEA spiel, the dealers don’t believe them and start shooting. Manny and Ray leave with all the money and meth they can carry, but when they count the money and examine the drugs, they realize they stole from the wrong person and are going to pay for it.
Brian Tyree Henry & Wagner Moura Have Excellent Chemistry
Henry & Moura Are No Strangers To Being Underestimated
Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura are two of the best living TV actors today. BetweenAtlantaandNarcos,respectively, they shaped the TV landscape of the mid-2010s and onward. Though there are bumps in the road forDope Thief, the chemistry between them doesn’t waver for a second. Save for their ‘‘Philly” accents, it feels like they could be friends in real life. When they look at each other, history stares back.
Tyree is often the strong, silent type, but he gets to do a lot of yelling in this. Moura, having played the iconic drug dealer, takes a stab at being a drug abuser this time. Neither actor disappoints. From the opening moment when they reveal the hustle to the earth-shattering end of season one, these two actors bring their A-game, even when the dialogue is in their way.
Dope Thiefhas a few things really working for it, mainly the surrounding talent in front of and behind the camera. Craig, who also wrote Ridley Scott’sGladiator II, enlisted the A-list director to direct the pilot ofDope Thief. When Martin Scorsese directedVinyl,it felt like a Scorsese movie. Even though the show was unceremoniously canceled after a season, Scorsese’s job was done. He created a tone and blueprint for the pilot that others could follow.
WithDope Thief, Craig was not so lucky. The pilot is good and certainly engages us with a fascinating story, but there is no blueprint, and the tone that is set is far from a breath of fresh air. Like his most comparable work,American Gangster, it’s always felt like Scott doesn’t know what to do with American characters and definitely doesn’t know what to do with Black American crime figures.
From the opening moment when they reveal the hustle to the earth-shattering end of season one, these two actors bring their A-game, even when the dialogue is in their way.
There is absolutely nothing about the pilot that would indicate to audiences he is directing. That normally wouldn’t matter, but he is not great at making this kind of story anyway and his enlistment as an executive producer doesn’t inspire much hope either. When you examine the light but effective flourishes of the show, it is Brian Tyree Henry whose producing credit comes to mind.
Dope Thiefcan be very funny at times. Henry and Moura bounce off each other in a way that suggests their line deliveries, and maybe even ad-libbing, made for a borderline dramedy cut that’s somewhere on the editing floor. On the other hand, there is some unintentional comedy that comes from supporting characters chewing up scenery. During an interrogation, Will Pullen looks at the camera with a straight face and says, “As good as you are at dodging raindrops. You’re gonna get wet.”
Some of the Easter eggs thrown in to ensure we know this show takes place in Philadelphia are going to be corny to those who are less familiar with the city and pure comedy to those who are. The opening credits feature an insert of an off-brand Philadelphia Eagles flag. During the season’s biggest action sequence, an insane mercenary dawns the same off-brand gear in t-shirt form as he guns down bikers. And of course, the obligatory use of “jawn” and “wooder” just had to be used, but half credit for using Freeway’s “Full Effect” in the pilot’s end-credit scene.
Dope Thiefhas one glaring problem: it should have spent more time with Henry and Moura robbing drug dealers. Everything else about the show can be accepted. IfDope Thiefwas a confirmed miniseries, we’d be having a different discussion, but the season ends with exactly enough ambiguity to lean either way. The characters have to be where they are and when they are, but the few flashbacks we get almost undercut what could have been more literal dope thieving. I’d trade every flashback we got throughout the show for a full flashback episode of their dope-robbing origin story.
The themes ofDope Thiefwork in tandem with the story. Side characters like Son (Dustin Nguyen) have cool action scenes that tie in with their beliefs, and his casting was a stroke of genius. The same goes for Marin Ireland’s dogged FBI agent, who seems exaggerated at first but grew on me by the end. This is not a happy ending, it is a cursed life. Peter Craig wroteThe Town, so that’s to be expected. The result is a show that has greatness in it but may have miscalculated its climax.
For a show calledDope Thief,they do not steal any dope after the pilot. Thankfully, the newerDope Thieftrailersseem to be getting that point across, but I couldn’t help but think that if we had more time to see them in the element of their hustle and maybe even enjoy it more, their fall from grace would mean that much more.Dope Thiefhas great performers, but the rest of it seems intent on maintaining the status quo instead of taking any big chances.
Dope Thief
Dope Thief follows two lifelong friends from Philadelphia who impersonate DEA agents to commit a robbery, inadvertently stumbling upon a major narcotics corridor. The seemingly simple heist escalates into a critical situation, threatening their lives and unravelling their friendship against the backdrop of the East Coast drug trade.
