Dope Thief Review: Brian Tyree Henry Is Riveting in Apple TV+'s Tense, Thoughtful Crime Drama

Ray Driscoll (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny Carvalho (Wagner Moura) have developed a simple way to make money that, in the opening scene of Dope Thief, seems almost foolproof. Outfitted with DEA uniforms and badges, they raid low-level drug dens and relieve the bottom-of-the-ladder dealers of any cash and drugs they have on hand. In the Philadelphia crime world, Ray and Manny aren't much higher up than their targets, but they can look and play the parts of feds long enough to get the job done.  "It's just about the authority bias, man," Ray explains after Manny compliments him on his performance. "They just want to believe somebody's in charge, so you project certainty. You don't give 'em no choice." Ray sounds like someone who has it all figured out. But that's soon revealed to be a performance, too.

Created by Peter Craig (whose screenwriting credits include The Batman and Top Gun: Maverick) working from a novel by Pennsylvania crime writer Dennis Tafoya, Dope Thief is thick with local detail that stretches from the Philadelphia neighborhoods where Ray and Manny make their homes to the countryside not far out of the city where farmhouse meth labs abut Amish country. It's here that, before the first episode ends, Manny and Ray take their DEA act too far. Acting on a tip, they decide to "raid" a seemingly vulnerable rural operation. But their operation takes a deadly turn that attracts two enemies from different worlds: the unseen kingpin who used it as a key piece of an underground drug ring and Mina (Marin Ireland), a real DEA agent working undercover who's injured in the line of duty.

Action bookends this series, and violence erupts with startling regularity throughout its eight episodes, but Dope Thief is as much about the personal consequences of Manny and Ray's choices — for themselves and those around them — as it is about the crimes they commit. In some ways, running from the law and criminal gangs only intensifies the problems they already had. Both addicts at differing stages of the recovery process, Manny and Ray have somehow kept those who love them in their lives. Manny has held on to his girlfriend Sherry (Liz Caribel), while Ray has kept the support of Theresa (Kate Mulgrew), a girlfriend of his father Bart (Ving Rhames) who's been a surrogate mother to Ray since Bart went to prison. But Manny and Sherry's status was tenuous even before his troubles began in earnest, just as Theresa's devotion to Bart strained her relationship with Ray. Elsewhere, Mina, rushing the recovery process, begins to question her own past loyalties as she investigates what happened.

7.6

Dope Thief

at Apple TV+

Like

• Intense story
• Strong performances
• Detailed Philadelphia setting

Dislike

• The narrative sags a bit toward the end

Tafoya's novel was published in 2009, but the series moves the action up to 2021, a shift that allows Craig and the writing staff to tap into the atmosphere of the first months after the introduction of the Covid vaccine, when the world was no longer under lockdown orders but still shaken by the recent past and an unclear future. That could just as easily describe Dope Thief's protagonists, who've moved from one death-haunted era in their lives to another, this one with sharper and more specific threats. When Ray, Theresa, and Manny have to hole up in a seedy motel they can leave only by endangering their lives, it undoubtedly feels like deja vu.

Dope Thief is rich in detail in other ways as well. When Ray consults with Michelle (Nesta Cooper), a lawyer working on Bart's case, he's surprised to learn she's a Quaker. Ray and Manny's associates range from Son Pham (Dustin Nguyen), a Vietnamese American kingpin living a quiet suburban life, to a trigger-happy gang who favor clown makeup. The Wire remains the gold standard for depicting how crime has intersections at every socioeconomic level of a 21st century American city, and Dope Thief borrows from its example.

The crime story itself can seem a bit familiar and overextended at times, and some of the set pieces toward the season's end feel overheated, but Dope Thief's investment in its characters' inner lives keeps it compelling. That's made possible by a string of first-rate performances, from the supporting cast (Mulgrew and Rhames are, unsurprisingly, standouts) to Ireland and Moura's work as complicated, passionate, deeply conflicted characters. But Henry alone would make Dope Thief worth watching. After the confidence Ray expresses in the opening episode is quickly exposed as a lie he tells himself and the world, Ray's story becomes that of a man seeking redemption while feeling he doesn't deserve it. Already haunted by ghosts and living reminders of a past that nearly destroyed him, his attempt to survive is hampered by a sense that maybe he doesn't deserve to live, whatever pleasure he may take in his family and friendships (and the impressive record collection he hauls around even on the lam). Henry lets the conflict play out on his face even when Ray has no dialogue. It's the look of a man terrified by the realization that, even though there may be nobody in charge, he might be fated to pay a horrible price for all he's done.

Premieres: Two episodes premiere Friday, March 14 on Apple TV+, with subsequent episodes releasing weekly
Who's in it: Brian Tyree Henry, Wagner Moura, Marin Ireland, Ving Rhames, Kate Mulgrew
Who's behind it: Peter Craig
For fans of: Tense crime thrillers, thoughtful character pieces
How many episodes we watched: 8 of 8