'The People v. O.J. Simpson' Review: Bold, Smart Tabloid Entertainment

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I didn’t expect The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, premiering Tuesday, to be more than overblown, trash-TV entertainment. I mean, a reenactment of the O.J. Simpson 1994-5 murder trial, with big names like John Travolta, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance, and David Schwimmer doing the impersonations? Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, who specialize in camp ridicule with American Horror Story and Scream Queens, among the prominent executive producers? Ten hours of this? And with a subtitle like “American Crime Story,” wouldn’t the whole thing be either a pretentious mess or a self-consciously goofy one?

By hour two, however, my misgivings had melted away. This so-called “limited series” takes the facts of the Simpson case and, by bending and shaping the emphases of those facts, turns it into a startlingly stirring critique of racism, sexism, and the judicial system that still resonates today. (The phrase “playing the race card” is so common now, it’s striking to realize that term was brought to national prominence by this trial.) To be sure, the series also contains its share of laughs and excess: No one is going to watch this production and not chuckle at the ridiculously exaggerated emphasis it places on the O.J. reactions of a then-teen-aged Kim Kardashian and her siblings — figures who remained all but unknown to the public during the trial. The producers and FX know they have to appeal to younger audience-segments.

Gooding plays Simpson straight, with no flourishes, no excessive emotionalism. It’s a wise strategy, since it turns Simpson into what he became in the popular imagination: a blank slate upon which each citizen could write what she or he thought of Simpson’s guilt or innocence.

Travolta, making his first return to series television since Welcome Back, Kotter, plays lead defense attorney Robert Shapiro with black hair and heavily-blacked eyebrows — against his pale skin, it almost becomes a Kabuki mask of exaggerated reactions. Travolta has chosen to play Shapiro as a silkily pretentious egomaniac, constantly puffing out his chest and addressing the rest of O.J.’s legal “dream team” as though lecturing children.

It’s not really the way Shapiro spoke, but it’s a fascinating interpretation. At first, I thought Travolta had gone disastrously over-the-top; as the hours went by, however, I became entranced with the way Travolta could command a TV screen filled with other actors simply by playing Shapiro’s quiet self-absorption.

In the six hours made available for review, it is Paulson’s performance as L.A. County prosecutor Marcia Clark that slowly, surely, comes to dominate the miniseries. Paulson has done some amazing things before, including acting with two heads for Murphy and Falchuk in American Horror Story: Freak Show, but in this role, she’s tremendously moving and subtle.

We knew that the Simpson trial and its not-guilty verdict — I guess I need to say here that he was accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994 — was a litmus test for race-relations in America, a test that continues today in so many contemporary instances of black men accused of crimes that become media sensations. But it’s the achievement of The People v. O.J. Simpson to also make this story an indictment of a sexist society that punished Marcia Clark for a variety of offenses — her hairdo, her wardrobe, her parenting skills. To be sure, dramatic liberties have been taken with author Jeffrey Toobin’s source-material book, but dramatizing Clark’s ceaseless struggle in being a woman in charge of a case surrounded almost entirely by men who held her in contempt is startling to behold.

The series is also packed with small roles that make an impression because the tartness of the performances match their vivid, shorthand characterizations: Connie Britton, marvelously brittle as Nicole’s friend Faye Resnick; Malcolm Jamal-Warner, blustery and appropriately desperate as Simpson’s Bronco-driving pal A.C. Cowlings; Cheryl Ladd, beautifully worldweary as Linell Shapiro; Robert Morse, perfectly snooty as Vanity Fair reporter-leech Dominick Dunne.

One key to the success of O.J. may be the screenwriting team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. They’ve written such interesting movies as The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon, the Andy Kaufman biopic. They approach the Simpson project with a definite points of view, one of which is to establish Johnny Cochran as the true mastermind who enabled Simpson to claim courtroom victory, and Vance’s acting delivers on that promise.

At first I thought Schwimmer was simply doing a variation on Friends’ Ross in his portrayal of Robert Kardashian as a simpering goody-goody, naïve to the point of idiocy about his friend Simpson’s capacity for violence. But then I looked at a few interviews on YouTube and saw that the actor had done a fine job of calibrating the soft, benevolent tone of the man. Nevertheless, the production cannot resist putting a speech in his mouth that is now sour with irony, given the existence of Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Robert lectures his children that “In this family, being a good person and a loyal friend is more important than being famous. Fame is fleeting and it’s hollow.” I’m sad to say the only fit response to this, in a Kocktails with Khloe world, is: Ha!

The People v. O.J. Simpson is no instant TV classic, and it sometimes goes for easy jokes. Nathan Lane is gloriously miscast as F. Lee Bailey, a shrewd brawler of an attorney who never projected the kind of witty intelligence Lane radiates. But as tabloid, true-crime entertainment, it’s hard to resist. These days, with so much TV to watch, I almost groan when I hear the announcement of another eight or 10 or 12-part series. But I have to say, after burning through the six hours FX provided of this, I was disappointed I didn’t have the remaining four to consume immediately.

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story airs on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.