‘Quarry’ Reviews: Critics Are Mixed on Cinemax’s Reluctant Hitman Drama

Logan Marshall-Green stars as a troubled Vietnam vet who is lured into more battles once he comes home

"Quarry" Reviews
Cinemax

“Quarry” premieres on Cinemax tonight, and so far, critics are mixed on how good the new ’70s-set crime drama is. But amidst the criticism, they provide plenty of reasons why it’s worth watching.

The series, created by former “Rectify” writers Michael D. Fuller and Graham Gordy, stars Logan Marshall-Green (“Prometheus”) as Mac Conway. He’s a Vietnam veteran-turned-hitman nicknamed Quarry because he’s “hollowed out on the inside, hard as rock” — which helps him keep his composure in dangerous situations.

His combat skills are linked to a traumatic experience in battle that garnered the attention of the media and has turned his hometown (and any prospective employers) against him. But it’s not the thrill of the kills that will define the show.

Sure, fans of unflinching violence will be satisfied by the show’s grittiest moments, but the real appeal is Mac’s reluctance to become Quarry, and how he’s lured into becoming the hired gun a that a mystery man named The Broker (Peter Mullan) wants him to be.

To give any details of the carefully woven story that unfolds in the 73-minute premiere and sets up the remaining seven episodes in the first season would spoil the viewing experience. But rest assured that the slow burn comes loaded with enough developments to keep you invested until the troubled anti-hero Quarry embraces his killer instinct.

It’s clear from the writing that Quarry is designed to be flawed, which in theory makes him more interesting, but HitFix‘s Alan Sepinwall found the character to be the weakest link in the series he graded a B+ and described as “pure, unapologetic pulp fiction.” He also compared it to HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.”

“Now along comes Cinemax’s ‘Quarry,’ which has many traits in common with Boardwalk. It’s another violent historical drama with stunning direction and vivid period detail, but its hero can’t help but come across as tofu compared to almost everyone around him,” Sepinwall wrote. “Of course, ‘Quarry’ deserves credit for giving us this marvelous collection of supporting players in the first place, and some second bananas are meant to be exactly that, and suffer when asked to do more … Mac is a sturdier and more conventional leading man role than Nucky was on ‘Boardwalk,’ even if he gets upstaged just as often.”

Supporting players that populate the sweaty South that Quarry calls home include his wife Joni (Jodi Balfour), his best friend Arthur (“The Wire”), another Vietnam vet who’s having just as much trouble adjusting to civilian life, a charismatic hitman talent scout, of sorts, named Buddy (Damon Herriman), and Suggs (Kurt Yaeger), a seedy private detective who Quarry encounters on his first assignment from The Broker.

Yahoo TV critic Ken Tucker complimented the “marvelous” casting, and was among the more enthusiastic critics. He said “Quarry” is “something far more deep, rich, and searching than just an action show.” He said that like “Stranger Things,” it includes subtle nods to its era.

“As I watched ‘Quarry,’ I was drawn into its increasingly intricate story, but also lifted away by its artful evocations of some of the great 1970s B-movies it evokes, such as ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain‘ (1978) and two Paul Schrader specials, ‘Rolling Thunder’ (1977) and ‘Blue Collar’ (1978),” Tucker wrote. “But the bottom line is, it doesn’t matter whether you get the references or not: ‘Quarry’ is a startlingly good, absorbing new show to sink down into, deeply.”

Village Voice critic Danny King found the violence to be “dull,” but praised the character study approach to the series, which is based on a series of books from author Max Allan Collins.

“Mac’s damaged psychology — expressed with tremendous depth by Marshall-Green — centers the show,” King wrote. “The actor is often unrecognizable underneath long sideburns and a bushy, walrus-y mustache, and he even buries much of his delivery; it sometimes feels like he’s reciting his lines underwater and the words are struggling to come up for air. His unrelenting aura of defeat is Quarry’s anchor: Even as the show spawns, to mixed results, new and varied characters, Marshall-Green keeps it entrenched in the absorbing, upsetting mindset of the rattled soldier returning home.”

On the flip side, Vulture critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote, “It sometimes makes the mistake of believing its hero’s pain is as inherently fascinating to us as it is to Quarry and his loved ones, even though he’s emotionally closed off a lot of the time.”

“The show strikes a particular note with great variety, but there are 87 other notes on a keyboard and you start to miss hearing them,” Seitz added. “There’s only so much that Marshall-Green — a subtly emotional actor whose stringy hair and handlebar mustache suggest Paul Rudd playing Ron Kovic — can do to bring us inside this tortured man’s psyche and help us see it as something other than tortured.”

New York Times critic Mike Hale offered one of the worst reviews, complimenting the music selection more than the drama unfolding on screen.

“With ‘Quarry,’ an eight-episode hard-boiled thriller beginning Friday night, Cinemax boards the mystery train once again. Following ‘Banshee’ (crime in small-town Pennsylvania) and ‘Outcast’ (horror in rural West Virginia), ‘Quarry’ is another exercise in lurid pulp storytelling and sweaty regional flavor. It’s not as much fun as either of those earlier shows — it’s too slow and solemn, and its obligatory touches of baroque weirdness lack conviction,” Hale wrote. “But the carefully maintained 1970s setting, a few good performances and a soundtrack full of Memphis soul at least partly redeem it.”

“Quarry” premieres tonight on Cinemax at 10/9c. 

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