An unlikely hit show, The Penguin proves that good writing, good acting, and particularly good direction can make the sideshow even bigger than the main event. It happened with Better Call Saul, an offshoot that vies for supremacy with the masterful Breaking Bad that spawned the prequel. And now it’s happening with Colin Farrell’s sideshow performance as the iconic Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, and I’m loving it.
It says a lot that The Penguin will likely go down as one of Colin Farrell’s all-time great roles considering the exceptional career he’s had, recently earning himself an Oscar nomination for The Banshees of Inisherin.
TV shows have become so much more popular than movies, in no small part because they are just longer. Instead of the traditional 90-minute movie (or three hours, as is the current length), you can extend the storytelling to squeeze in eight hour-long episodes. To make that work, you need all three of the main ingredients in filmmaking: writing, acting, and directing. For something requiring so much prosthetics and makeup, those departments need to bring their A-game every day.
Farrell’s performance is arguably the key cog of the good show triumvirate. As The Guardian enthused that “Farrell, who at times looks like Danny DeVito on a diet of gas station sushi and sheer spite, is clearly having so much fun as the Penguin that it might even make up for having to sit for three hours to undergo his daily transformation.
“This was supposed to be a novelty, the chance to see the Oscar nominee literally disappear into the role of Gotham’s most likable dirty little rat, but the twists, turns and power struggles are so fast and fabulous that spending each episode trying to spot the handsome Irishman underneath all that silicone would be like attending a Vegas magic show just to figure out how the rabbit got in the hat.”
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He is truly unrecognisable as the titular character. While watching the first episode, my wife and I couldn’t remember who the lead actor was. Looking at Oswald Cobb, there was nothing even remotely Colin Farrell-esque about him. He pulls off that ambling gait which earned the character his nickname.
Cristin Milioti is equally excellent as tortured mobster Sofia Falcone, and young Rhenzy Feliz holds his own as young Vic, whose role in The Penguin will assuredly see him grabbing plenty of parts in the future.
The Penguin, as The Guardian wrote so eloquently, is “one of those rare treats that comes along almost completely unexpectedly, like Batman cracking a smile, or Harley Quinn making sensible life choices. Nobody really expected a show about the second banana in the dark knight’s famed rogue’s gallery to be up to much even if Colin Farrell’s performance, under all those prosthetics, in The Batman was a startlingly grimy diversion from the gloomy glamour of Matt Reeves’s elegant vision of Gotham City’s proto dark knight.”
“But an entire series based on Oswald Cobb’s bloody rise through the ranks of Gotham City’s lurid underworld always seemed a little superfluous to the main event, a spiky little sideshow to keep us entertained, deep down in the gutter with a villainous Humpty Dumpty, while DC works out what to do with the highfalutin’ sequel.”
