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‘Bosch’ evokes classic cop dramas

4 min read

No cliche goes unmined in “Bosch,” but Amazon Studios’ new cop drama is nonetheless gripping, gritty and oddly old-fashioned – in a very good way.

Amazon’s first hour-long drama series emerged from its audience-testing pilots program last year, and all 10 episodes will be available for streaming on Friday on Amazon Prime and other platforms. Coming on the heels of the rapturously reviewed comedy “Transparent,” it marks a significant expansion in Amazon’s content playing field.

“Bosch,” based on the novels of Michael Connelly, is about a modern-day cop improbably named Hieronymus Bosch (Titus Welliver) breaking rules and solving crimes in Los Angeles. The fact he shares a name with the 15th century Dutch painter whose works were overstuffed with the kind of fantastic imagery that Guillermo del Toro might have dreamed up is prima facie evidence of how writerly the TV show is.

Harry, as he’s known, is being sued for the wrongful shooting of a suspect at the same time he gets involved with the discovery of a child’s skeletal remains high in Laurel Canyon. Harry lives in a glass-walled aerie overlooking L.A. The minute we think no detective could afford a place like this, we’re conveniently told that someone made a movie once about something he was involved with and he got a lot of money.

His interest in the boy’s murder gets personal when he finds out the bones show signs that the victim was severely abused. Harry can identify: His mother was a prostitute, and he was beaten by a stepfather.

After a while, the show develops a pattern of sorts. You pretty much know what’s going to happen before it does. To wit: The cops agree to take a suspect out of jail to visit the site where he allegedly killed the kid. Bosch argues that the cops are being played and that it’s dangerous to take the guy out of jail. But the D.A. (Steven Culp) has his eye on a brighter political future and figures that nailing the child killer is good for a few thousand votes. What better campaign fodder than to have his own videographer record the moment when the suspect shows him and the cops where the boy was murdered?

How do you think that works out for the D.A.?

All of these details, and many others, may be credible in Connelly’s novels, but on the surface, they’re hard to swallow in the script for “Bosch.”

So why is it so darn fun to watch? Because Welliver and other cast members make it credible, first of all, and because of the show’s unlikely nostalgic sensibility: It feels like a detective movie or TV show from another era. Maybe it’s the jazz-infused score; the L.A. setting; Harry Bosch’s taciturn, neo-Joe Friday nature; but the experience of watching “Bosch” feels like a pleasant trip down police procedural lane. Harry’s new fling with a much younger cop, Julia Brasher (Annie Wersching), only adds to the whole deja vu thing.

The show’s two-rail plot structure follows Bosch’s trial for the questionable killing and his dogged pursuit of the boy’s killer from 20 years ago. Of the two story lines, the trial is less important. Of course he’s going to skate through, more or less. There may be a slap on the wrist, but anything more than that would obviate the whole show. Mimi Rogers plays the hard-charging plaintiff’s attorney.

Meanwhile, Bosch; his partner, Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector); and a couple of veteran middle-grade detectives known as Crate and Barrell (Troy Evans and Gregory Scott Cummins) are pursuing leads in the case of the murdered boy.

A routine traffic stop results in the arrest of a lowlife character named Raynard Waits (Jason Gedrick) who has something in his van that gets him hauled in as a suspect in the boy’s murder. Bosch isn’t convinced the solution is that easy, but he has to both toe the company line and pursue his own line of inquiry to keep from becoming more of a pariah in the department than he already is.

Welliver is familiar to viewers from shows such as “Sons of Anarchy” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” He embodies a grizzled, seen-it-all skepticism and world-weariness in his portrayal of Harry Bosch.

Because he is not only a character actor but a very good actor, we completely believe him in the role, even if we have to struggle to suspend disbelief in the actual script.

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