It’s a genuine relief that The Get Down knows when to take its foot off the pedal. The show’s pilot, as you may have gathered from my review, is an amusement park ride, a full-throttle blast through introductions to its character, its era, and its place. That’s not the kind of pace that you want to hang with in every single installment of a six-episode series, but hey, Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Adly Guirgis appear to realize this, and so we get a version of The Get Down that does not move at Ludicrous Speed.
The only thing that I feel like complaining about is the gangster element, which honestly feels like a bit much when you consider how much struggle both of its main characters have to contend with. Slick, shady crooks on top of that seems unnecessary. But hey, whatever. Excess can be fun. Get the full lowdown over at Paste Magazine. As you normally do.
A Constant Visual Feast 