About midway through the second episode of The Big Cigar, the latest AppleTV+ series, I found myself wondering just why this particular story hadn’t been made into a movie instead of an over-long and wholly unnecessary six-episode limited series. And when I dug a little bit, I discovered that in fact, it was originally optioned (from Joshuah Bearman’s 2012 Playboy article of the same name) as a film. Only later in the development process was it changed to a limited series. And boy, was that the wrong move. Sure, I understand that it’s nearly impossible to get smaller films made these days – and this would have been a smaller film looking for an award season run – but stretching a story out over six episodes without much juice to make it through that run? That’s a huge misstep that dooms what could have been a compelling and high-octane true story.
The Big Cigar tells the Argo-esque story of Huey P. Newton (a great Andre Holland), leader of the Black Panthers, and his attempt to escape to Cuba with the aid of film producer Bert Schneider (a rather bland Alessandro Nivola). On paper, it sounds like a hell of a story. Trying to outsmart the Feds with a plan to create a faux film being made around Huey’s story all while spiriting the very wanted man away from the clutches of the FBI. A thriller with a Hollywood flare. But on screen? Oof. The series can’t seem to decide which story it wants to be telling: the genuinely interesting story of Newton’s role in the creation of the Black Panthers and the desperate work of the FBI to silence him and his movement – permanently, if possible – or the story of a bunch of young movie producers and Hollywood types who see a chance to save the day and get a potential film out of the struggle to get Newton off of US soil. One of those stories is much more interesting than the other, yet the series opts to provide nearly equal time to both, resulting in a series that manages to tell neither story well.
And it’s a shame that the writing can’t manage to create a coherent and compelling story out of the source material, because the series has a hell of a leading performance from Holland that is utterly wasted within the confused storytelling. Whenever I see Holland’s name in the credits for a project, I know I’m in for a treat because he is almost always able to take whatever role he’s given and turn in a spectacular performance along with it. And here, despite having his hands tied more often than not by a script that isn’t allowing him to take a rather dull version of a truly interesting man and run with it, Holland is giving it his all. It’s hard not to wonder what heights his performance could have reached had he not been so hindered in his performance. Alas, we shall never know.
The Big Cigar is the latest in a line of AppleTV+ shows wherein it’s clear that no expense has been spared in the budget (the sets and costumes are period appropriate and pretty snazzy to boot), but the series fails to live up to the money put into it – or the talented cast that was roped into trying to make sense of a script and story that can’t deliver. If Apple keeps rolling out these types of series, it’s only a matter of time before they won’t be able to afford to keep the quality this high when the content can’t match it. Just something to keep an eye on as the streaming service continues to churn out content. Will anything match the quality of some of the streamer’s early content (Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, Severance), or are we stuck with middling fare that never touches greatness?
The Big Cigar premieres on May 17 on AppleTV+. All six episodes were provided for review.
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