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- 2024
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- 2024
- Apple TV+
- 2024
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- 2024
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The Big Cigar
Season 1 Premiere: May 17, 2024
61
5.0
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
61
50% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
50% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
61
50% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
50% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The Big Cigar works on multiple levels. It’s a retro action thriller. It’s a fictional representation of American history and the biography of a countercultural giant. It’s a showcase for Nivola, Boone, and especially Holland, who balances Huey’s intelligence, courage, and post-traumatic paranoia. There’s humor in the culture clash between revolutionaries and Hollywood types.
The Big Cigar is thoroughly entertaining, but rather than fully honoring this under-told piece of history, it feels like things have been manipulated into the form of a digestible six-episode miniseries.
There are intriguing snippets in all these various timelines, but the shuttling back and forth deprives The Big Cigar from the nimble cadence it requires to keep up with Holland’s narration, Newton’s story, and the vibrant ’70s aesthetic directors like Don Cheadle bring to the series.
By giving Schneider co-lead billing in what should have been the Huey P Newton story, The Big Cigar has supplied a dispiriting answer to its own still pertinent question: no, Hollywood can’t be trusted to authentically tell the stories of Black radicals; the compulsion to centre whiteness is just too strong.
When digging into the inner-workings of Newton’s mind and exploring the in-fighting and rival ambitions that ultimately undermined the Black Panthers, we are taken to the heart of a key period of recent history. So much so that Newton’s flight to Cuba and Schneider’s part in it feel like an unwelcome guest at the party.
The series isn’t dumb; if anything, it has too much on its mind. But in attempting to tell so many stories about so many people, and with its ceaseless rocketing around in time, it loses focus and force. .... But Holland shifts gears smoothly through these twists and turns. .... He makes him someone you want to learn more about, the best thing an actor playing a real person can do.
The Big Cigar ends up being two different unsatisfying shows squished together into six episodes of under 42 minutes apiece — occasionally stylish and boasting a very good lead performance by André Holland, but frustratingly mediocre overall.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 5 User Ratings
5.0
40% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
20% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
40% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 5 User Ratings
5.0
40% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
20% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
40% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
Production Company:
- Warner Bros.
- Epic Pictures
- Folding Chair Productions
- Warner Bros. Television
Initial Release Date: May 17, 2024
Number of seasons: 1 Season