Cross Review: Prime Video Crime Thriller Plays It Too Safe

Cross is Prime Video's latest series in its signature genre of adaptations of popular paperback novels about smart tough guys. It follows in the footsteps of hits like Bosch, Jack Ryan, and Reacher. It's based on one of the bestselling book series of all time, James Patterson's Alex Cross series, which has sold over 100 million copies across the 30+ titles in the series. So the hope — if not the expectation — for Cross the show is that it becomes Prime Video's next long-running hit like Bosch and launches star Aldis Hodge to stardom like Reacherdid for Alan Ritchson. The show was renewed for Season 2 months before Season 1 premiered. Amazon Prime Video is bullish.   

A level of success like its peers could happen for Cross. But if it does, it won't be because it's a great show. Cross lacks a certain vigor. It makes safe choices instead of interesting ones.

Cross follows Alex Cross (Hodge), a Metropolitan Police Department detective with a Ph.D. in psychology from Johns Hopkins, as he simultaneously works two cases. In one, he's trying to catch a serial killer terrorizing Washington, D.C. In the other, he's trying to find out who's terrorizing his family, and how they're connected to the murder of his wife Maria (Chaunteé Schuler Irving) one year earlier. Cross is avoiding dealing with his feelings about Maria's death head-on, and the problematic ways they're coming out are alienating him from his family and his best friend and partner, Det. John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa). He knows how to get inside killers' heads, but he can't fix what's going on inside himself. As the cases grow more intense, he struggles to keep himself together while trying to rescue the killer's next victim before it's too late.

5.0

Cross

at Amazon

Like

• Aldis Hodge's performance

Dislike

• Weak villain
• Pulled punches

The killer, Ed Ramsey (New Amsterdam's Ryan Eggold), is the show's biggest problem. He's not scary, just confusing. He's a wealthy philanthropist (where did the money come from?) who worships serial killers as if they're gods. As an act of worship/art project (the show can't decide which) he kidnaps people and turns them into exact replicas of famous serial killers before reenacting their executions. Even with all of Cross' forensic psychology know-how, the "why" never really makes sense, which wouldn't be a problem if Ramsey were convincingly sick and twisted, but the show doesn't go far enough to make him or any other character disturbing. There are some half-hearted attempts at shock, but Cross pulls its punches, never showing much gore or delivering many memorably graphic lines of dialogue. If you're watching a serial killer show, you want to see something crazy, and Cross has a disappointing and frankly baffling lack of craziness. People can handle a lot more than this. If you're even a casual Criminal Minds viewer, you'll probably be bored by Cross' timidity. 

The show also reveals the killer's identity so early — basically the first time you see him; his bleached-blond hair may as well be a mustache twirl — that it saps the show of the possibility of mystery. It feels like the show doesn't want to build up that tension for some reason, and would rather skip ahead to the reveal. After that, the plot just becomes about how Cross will catch the killer, which makes the viewer less of a participant than we would be if we were trying to crack the case along with him. I have not read any of Patterson's novels, but from what I understand, the killer is usually a character, and the tension comes from their cat-and-mouse game with Cross. Obviously, that formula works well enough to sell 100 million books, but it requires a more interesting villain than the one Cross provides. There is a mystery in Cross' other case, where someone is targeting his family, but it, too, fails to make an impression. 

The series is created for television by Ben Watkins (Hand of God). It is not based on any Alex Cross novel and has no connection to the previous adaptations starring Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry. Here, Aldis Hodge takes over the role of America's most famous cop, and he almost single-handedly keeps the show watchable. Hodge is a veteran actor you may have seen in any number of shows or movies, such as the TNT drama Leverage or as MC Ren in Straight Outta Compton. He's getting what could be the biggest role of his career, and he rises to the occasion. He's very good when called on to be charming and when he needs to be an action hero, but he's best in the emotional scenes. He finds the wounded heart of the character, and when he lets his guard down, it's powerful. He also looks fantastic in turtleneck sweaters. Reacher's whole thing is that he wears t-shirts he bought at the gas station, and Chris Pratt just wears operator gear on The Terminal List, so it's nice to see a Prime Video action hero with some drip. 

But even he can't save Cross from its unwillingness to go for it. Here's one final example of the show going for a safe choice rather than an interesting one. The show introduces a murder tied to the Defund the Police/Black Lives Matter movement, has Cross take the expected positions for his character (the police are good, racism is bad), and then reveals that the murder had nothing to do with politics. If it doesn't matter either way, why is it in the show at all? Why would a show introduce a hot button issue if it's not going to approach the topic with thought-provoking internal tension or, conversely, take a firm ideological stance on either side? Cross knows what type of show it wants to be, but it can't commit to going all the way.   

Premieres: Thursday, Nov. 14 on Prime Video with all eight episodes
Who's in it: Aldis Hodge, Isaiah Mustafa, Juanita Jennings, Alona Tal, Johnny Ray Gill, Ryan Eggold
Who's behind it: Ben Watkins (creator), Nzingha Stewart (director), James Patterson (author/executive producer)
For fans of: The Alex Cross novel series, handsome detectives
How many episodes we watched: 8 of 8