A new lawyer hourlong from David E. Kelley (“L.A. Law,” “Picket Fences,” “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice,” “Lake Placid,” “Mystery, Alaska,” “Chicago Hope,” “Snoops,” “Girls Club,” “Boston Public,” “Boston Legal,” “The Wedding Bells,” “Harry’s Law,” “Monday Mornings,” “The Crazy Ones”), “Goliath” fishes Kelley out of network television and slaps him onto the Amazon streaming service, where he is permitted to put the words “fuck” and “shit” into the mouths of Billy Bob Thornton and William Hurt.
This may be an era of “peak TV,” which is to say the era of the most TV shows ever, but “Goliath” is not the peak Kelley we got at the starts of “Ally McBeal” and “Chicago Hope.” Nonetheless, “Goliath,” about a low-rent L.A. lawyer going to battle in a wrongful-death suit against his old high-rent firm, is probably the most compelling television the writer has produced in more than a decade.
The show gets its title from the Thornton character’s old law firm, which continues to bear his name and now employs more than 1,000 lawyers worldwide, include his ex-wife.
It’s a highly serialized departure for the writer, who used to tell three or four little-connected stories a week on “L.A. Law” and is now telling one long story across eight hours. The first and second episodes (the only ones made available for review) end with great cliffhangers.
And Amazon has ponied up for a big cast: Thornton and Hurt’s female co-stars include Olivia Thirlby (“Juno”), Tonia Raymonde (“Lost”), Maria Bello (“A History of Violence”), Sarah Wynter (“24”) and Molly Parker (“Deadwood”), whose quippy serpent of an attorney feels like she slithered out of Cage & Fish.
... Kelley's tightest, least self-conscious, most satisfying show since those first few Practice seasons. …
... The narrative juggling has the feel of stretching — of starting with a story suited for an episode of traditional TV or maybe a feature film and extending it to more than nine hours. Final judgment on that will have to wait until all 10 episodes are available. Some things we can probably count on, though. Mr. Kelley and Mr. Shapiro (they worked together on “The Practice” and “Boston Legal”) will serve up a snappy piece of dialogue every few minutes. Mr. Thornton, even in one of his more routine performances, will be a pleasure to watch. …
... Even though most episodes of the show run close to a full hour, they rarely feel slack or sluggish — a common affliction in streaming shows — and often end in tantalizing cliffhangers. They also understand that a show needn’t be unrelentingly gloomy or morose to be taken seriously, and that a bit of levity is a good thing in a drama. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... If you’re missing a kitchen sink, I’d suggest looking for it in this very entertaining metaphorical landfill …
David E. Kelley has nothing new to say. He and collaborator Jonathan Shapiro have crafted a legal drama that plays like the scraps from Kelley’s successful series “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice” and “Boston Legal.”…
... a solidly entertaining legal thriller that benefits enormously from Billy Bob Thornton’s strong lead. …
... Whatever Amazon may have expected, what the streaming service received plays like a rejected Legal story arc overlaid with The Verdict, The Night Of and Better Call Saul, and liberally laced throughout with profanities.…
... What keeps Goliath watchable, and it's certainly quite watchable, is the superlative ensemble cast, particularly Billy Bob Thornton, whose gift at taking predictably quirky characters and making the beats of that quirkiness slightly off-kilter is close to unmatched. …
... as hybrids go, this entertaining drama has quite a bit to offer. … One of the best parts of “Goliath” is the way it wrestles with the question of whether McBride’s underhanded and intimidating strategies are truly justifiable. Sometimes they’re clever, but at times he appears to be playing games with people’s lives. …
12:01 a.m. Friday. Amazon.
