‘Death by Lightning’ Review: An Underwhelming Tribute to a Hero

The story of an under-sung American hero and the rattling idiot who shot him, Netflix’s Dying by Lightning is a bit like Hamilton with out the rapping. However the place Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical delivers its story with full-throated enthusiasm and wide-eyed admiration for its topic, Mike Makowsky’s four-part miniseries can’t fairly commit to the identical degree of earnestness, although at occasions it appears like it might like to.

Dying by Lightning focuses on U.S. President James Garfield (Michael Shannon) and the person who adored, obsessed over, and finally assassinated him, Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen). The pair are rapidly established as polar opposites: Guiteau is an aspirational schemer who’s racked up fairly a prison file, whereas Garfield is a man so humble that he has to be dragged into the presidential race in opposition to his will.

Burying his extra manic mannerisms below a bushy beard and stately demeanor, Shannon is very convincing as certainly one of historical past’s Nice Males—the kind who radiate a lot fortitude and decency that individuals can’t assist however fall in line behind them. Conversely, Macfadyen excels as a significantly spineless type of follower, and he performs Guiteau as an much more determined, extra submissive model of his Succession character, Tom. There’s a childlike naïvete to Guiteau, a cheerful conviction to the way in which he tells such apparent lies, that he turns into oddly endearing.

The present’s plot is kicked into movement when Garfield delivers a thunderous speech on the 1880 Republican Nationwide Conference, awing his listeners to such a diploma that they abandon their established candidates in favor of “The Man from Ohio.” Guiteau will get wind of this thrilling newcomer, is immediately smitten, and begins working tirelessly to ingratiate himself with Garfield. When that enthusiasm goes unreciprocated, issues take a very darkish flip.

The collection outfits its characters in lavish interval costumes and elaborate sideburns, however it appears much less certain of how to type itself. At occasions, particularly after we’re following Garfield, Dying by Lightning is a classically styled interval piece about a noble man on a quest to do good. At others, it’s a fast-cutting, fast-talking lark about amoral political operators within the mode of the glossier, extra raucous historic reveals which have discovered success lately.

Would that the schism between these two kinds have been extra clearly intentional, demarcating a divide between the grand dream of America that Garfield embodies and the grubby, self-interested political actuality that Guiteau represents. As it’s, although, they spill over into one another in a manner that merely makes issues really feel a bit messy. The dialogue splits the distinction, switching freely between ornate, old-timey speech and fashionable vernacular, with Guiteau specifically utilizing oddly anachronistic phrases like “assembly the second” and referring to himself as a certainly one of Garfield’s “boosters.”

Luckily, the actors appear to know precisely what they’re doing. Shea Whigham has spent a lot of his profession taking part in the straight man, so it’s good to see him given the prospect, as Senator Roscoe Conkling, to chew the surroundings as a literal cane-twirling villain. Elsewhere, Nick Offerman’s gruff comedic charms are properly deployed because the beer-swilling, brass knuckle-brandishing vice chairman, and whereas Betty Gilpin is basically relegated to the thankless function of “Nice Man’s Spouse,” she explodes into life for a couple of knockout scenes within the closing episode.

Whereas the bond between the Garfields feels pure and lived-in, although, Dying by Lightning struggles to carry that sort of depth to its most vital relationship: the one between Guiteau and the president. Guiteau spends many of the collection caught in a loop of repetitive scenes as he harries one Garfield ally after one other in a bid to change into certainly one of them. He circles the perimeters of the primary story with none sense that he’s winding up or tragically unraveling. Even on this fictionalized model of his life, Guiteau finds himself misplaced within the shadows of Garfield’s story.