AudioFileZ Review of The Deuce

The Deuce (2017–2019)

Feeling Like I'm Getting Dirty Just By Watching

[7/10 · 25 October 2017]

This is one of those productions where the prop masters and producers really pulled off a big visual coup. I'm talking about how the 70's NYC is so accurately recreated. At first this makes such an impression as to actually compete with the story. Soon it does that which it should and makes you feel you are peeking back in time. A look into the new wild west only it's The Big Apple which is often as dangerous. The players feel just as real too with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal playing two desperate and disparate characters who are struggling to get ahead in the minefields of the city. They're supported by a cast who brings colorful characters who are based on actual people of the time.. Colorful is a major understatement as the vice in Vegas would seem tame in comparison. This is a mad collision of street people: pimps, working girls, drug dealers, mafioso thugs, and crooked law enforcement. There's a certain hardness to these people purely rooted in the primal human survival instinct. It all revolves around making a buck and criminal activity…at least on street level in NYC as seen here. It brings the cliché' to mind: "only the strong survive". Yet it almost seems only the lucky will come through alive and unscathed. As boring as Minnesota might be it makes one wonder why a young woman would choose life on the street in the city over safe and warm at home? Peeking back in on a time gone is both fun and harrowing…this film is down, dirty, and real. Not for the squeamish because it actually makes you feel somewhat dirty watching. You can take this and process it with you own filter so you will know if you might want to watch or avoid. I got uncomfortable often but, I found such alien lives like a car wreck that for some reason one fails to turn away from.