Cross, the latest Prime Video series to adapt a popular paperback hero into a series format, is one of the most entertaining streaming offerings of the year. Striking a nice balance between the sort of gory, elevated potboilers character creator James Patterson wrote about in his Alex Cross novels and series creator Ben Watkins’ desire to mine the source for modern social and political context, this is a series that pleasingly offers thrill ride delights with a side of topics worth thinking about and contemplating. The plot lines in Cross are just as outlandish and twisty as Patterson’s novels, but this time they’re part of a thoughtfully drawn character drama that goes down pleasingly and offers a lot of potential for future instalments.
Set sometime in the middle of the cycle of Patterson’s novels (some of which are referenced multiple times as having already occurred), but creating a new storyline all its own, Cross familiarly gives its titular hero a ruthlessly cunning and bloodthirsty madman to do battle with anew. For the uninitiated, Alex Cross – here portrayed by Aldis Hodge, following in the steps of big screen portrayers Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry – is a Washington D.C. police detective with a doctorate in psychology. He can crack the creeps no one else can. Here, he’s also a broken and grieving man who almost got fired for taking the law into his own hands, following the still unsolved assassination death of his wife. Living with his kids (Caleb Elijah and Melody Hurd) and beloved nana (Juanita Jennings) and partnered up with his childhood best friend and fellow cop, John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa), Cross isn’t without support in his life, but his mind is always somewhere else these days. More bad news hits when he gets caught up in the murder of a former gang member turned community advocate and noted “defund the police” protestor. While his boss (Jennifer Wigmore) wants to dismiss the case as an accidental overdose death, Cross and Sampson suspect foul play, all of it pointing towards a serial killer with an unusual motive and deep political connections.
Those familiar with Patterson’s novels will be familiar with the gristly serial killer themes that abound in Cross, but never reinvent the wheel. The nastiest bits are all derivative of any number of other cat and mouse thrillers from the page and screen. None of that will be particularly shocking, but Watkins’ take on the character succeeds where other adaptations of Patterson have failed: they make Alex Cross into more than just a brilliant analytical mind. Here, Alex Cross is a conflicted, damaged, and thoroughly interesting character, coaxing out deep layers of his personality that Patterson was able to get to over time, but are never shortchanged in eight episodic instalments.
A big part of the success of Cross, other than its stylish, propulsive sensibilities, is the work of Hodge in the lead. The plot line of Cross sounds straight out of a season of Criminal Minds, but Hodge leans into the coolness and determination of the character, making him feel like a modern day equivalent of Shaft, which is a great point of comparison when one considers the ways in which Watkins wants to update the character to the modern era. Hodge plays Cross as a devoted detective who hates being a cop most days. He wants to serve and protect, but he’s always questioning who he’s actually serving and whether his protection makes a difference. He’s an analytical mind with a short fuse who hates playing politics, making him a hard person to deal or get along with. Hodge demands attention and earns it effortlessly. He can switch up from being intelligent, smooth, and collected, to an enraged blunt instrument without missing a beat.
The supporting cast gives Hodge plenty to play off of. His sometimes contentious chemistry alongside Elijah, as his young and emotionally struggling son, and Mustafa is pitch perfect, and the antagonism he has opposite Wigmore’s politically motivated police chief provides a lot of fuel to propel Cross’ social themes. A hero is also only as good as his villains, and bleach blonde baddie Ryan Eggold provides Hodge with a perfectly campy counterpoint as an art aficionado and philanthropist working on an “unorthodox” project. Similarly, Johnny Ray Gill electrifies and steals every scene he’s in as a high strung, psychotic, and ghoulishly amusing former cop turned villainous lackey.
The serial killer stuff plays out with the expected amount of twists and turns, but the modern element of bringing the Black Lives Matter movement and efforts to defund police forces so prominently into the story also makes some interesting swerves. Not content with giving the viewer a simplistic procedural (although he could’ve easily done so with the top notch elements here and still come out relatively ahead), Watkins ensures that Cross’ social climate provides ample moments to reflect upon what it means to be a high ranking black officer in a modern police force. It’s clear from the outset that Alex Cross is proud to be black and a cop, but those two things are often at odds with one another. Watkins isn’t afraid to make the viewer question the moral fibre of Alex Cross, and to even make him look like a person who has let his own biases colour the way he sees the world. The subject matter is in line with Patterson’s source novel, insomuch as things get bleaker before they get better, but the racial and social context of Cross remains equally pointed, chilling, and integral to the story.
If there’s anything wrong with Cross, it’s that the wheels start to come off towards the last couple of episodes. Already green lit for a second season before most have had a chance to watch the first, there are plenty of breadcrumbs being placed for future instalments, but a lot of the links are crammed into the final couple of episodes. Cross ends up landing like a larger idea that has been awkwardly condensed to fit an eight episode goal, leading to a finale that would’ve worked better as a start to the next season than an ending to this one. But aside from that, one’s enjoyment of Cross will probably boil down to whether or not viewers can get on board with Patterson’s old school hero. Familiarity with the novels helps, but definitely isn’t a prerequisite. I’ve read a fair few Alex Cross books, and liked them for what they were, which means this adaptation might be a hair better than the novels it sprung from.
Cross is now available to stream on Prime Video.
