TV review: Task is slow-and-steady cop drama, but it's full of heart
Cork's Alison Oliver stars alongside Mark Ruffalo, Thuso Mbedu and Fabien Frankel in Task.
My wife says (Sky Atlantic and NOW) is slow, and she’s not wrong. The first episode of this seven-part thriller is in no rush to get to the thrills.
Sharing its creator with Mare of Easttown, Task is moody and dark for the first 30 minutes, before moving things more edge-of-seat.
This works because the two main characters are sticky, they make you watch them. Tom Pelphrey is Robbie, a slightly thick bad guy who thinks he’s profound and decent.
His racket is to use his job as a garbage collector to stake out drug-stash houses and raid them with his buddy when he knows they are stuffed with cash.
This involves scary masks, shouting, and guns and it’s going very well.
On the other side, Mark Ruffalo plays FBI agent Tom Brandis, a hard-drinking softie who is put at the head of a task force to catch Robbie and co.
Task isn’t afraid of a cliché. The members of the task force are so oddball, it’s like watching a parody cop show on .
But the characters are well-drawn, so you want to see what happens to them.
Cork’s Alison Oliver plays the oddball, Lizzie, who tends to bring her troubles to work.
But the real attraction here is Tom Pelphrey’s Robbie.
His partner has walked out, his brother was killed, and Robbie lives with that brother’s daughter, Maeve (played by the superb Emilia Jones) who is stuck raising Robbie’s two kids.
He has this serene, chirpy demeanour that can suddenly tip over into rage and self-pity.
But there is a credible tenderness between Robbie and Maeve that means it’s hard to know what to think about him. He’s the reason you’ll stick with Task.
The first Robbie raid goes so smoothly that you might feel cheated out of some sickening violence.
The second raid goes wrong and we’re left with bodies on the ground. (There isn’t stomach-churning stuff here, I was able to watch and I have to turn away if someone gets a cut on their knee.)
But really, the action is only part of the story. The intrigue here is Robbie’s family relations and Tom’s awkward moments with his teenage daughter.
They are both trying to be better people than they really are, and it’s interesting to watch them row against the tide of their own failings.
Task is a different kind of thriller. It trusts the viewer to stick around and get to know the characters before putting a gun in their hands.
Give it a watch.
