American Crime Story: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace

The inverse of the OJ season: phenomenal lead acting, focuses on the crimes themselves and the leadup to/psychological underpinning of them rather than the aftermath, motivations are left ambiguous, a casual disregard for the criminal investigators. It's like the end scene of American Psycho stretched across a miniseries, a character study of a haunting void. The major criticism is how this overshadows the Versace side of things, as you're left waiting for the show to get back to Darren Criss.

I don't know about you but this Cunanan guy seems a little not right in the head to me

Excellent mini-series elevated by Criss' remarkable, by turns bone chilling yet somehow poignantly sympathetic portrait of Cunanan; a well chosen supporting cast are equally fine, with devastating turns from Light (as the widow of one of the victims) and Briones, who makes Cunanan Sr as seductive and disturbing a presence as his son! Perhaps ironically, the Versace thread is the least compelling, often slowing the narrative momentum, but Cruz still manages to make an impact as Donatella.

one of the best seasons of tv of the decade

1

More or less tedious from start to finish. I was a bit intrigued by the reverse story, but there is nothing to justify the length of eight episodes.

Far from as good as the OJ story.

Pretty good, not as good as the OJ one, but still quite well done.

Should have had the fat trimmed and been 3 or 4 episodes shorter.

I really wonder what Paolo Sorrentino could have done with this. Highlight was Ricky Martin's casting given the context of his personal life vs character. Nevertheless, we get a deep character analysis that unravels the mess of tangled lies that is Cunanan's life, cascading out into the lives of his victims to understand how they got caught up in the maelstrom. I was surprised how far off-piste the series went with entire episodes forgetting to mention the character it used as it's namesake.

It has many good components, but in the end it doesn't quite come off because of the confusing structure. Too much jumping around of the timeline, and be the time we finally get back to the showdown in Miami, we have completely forgotten how he got there. It also makes its psychological points far too broadly and unsubtly. That said, Darren Criss is pretty great...in fact, the whole thing is pretty well-cast (Ricky Martin is an especially pleasant surprise), and Judith Light is fantastic.

Darren Criss's Andrew Cunanan is an acting tour de force; he inhabits the role and does the near impossible by making us feel at times that Cunanan was somehow the true victim.

Seems that a show like this would be exactly what Cunanan would have wanted, which doesn't sit right