Tusk: Dark Side of American Crime Drama & Art

Once the viewer opens any electronic platform, the crime and investigations series, which are mainly centered on criminals, killers, or outlaws in general, are stacked in front of him, whether from the police or other government agencies on the other side. These actions prevailed over the idea of ​​the simple conflict between good and evil, but recent years have witnessed the emergence of the work of her plots that are not so simple, and their characters stand on the moral edge.

In 2021, “HPO” presented a short series of only 7 episodes entitled “Mare of Easttown” starring Kate Winslet, and achieved critical and mass success and at the level of awards, and after almost 4 years, “TASK” series, written by the author himself, Brad Engelbe.

Its events revolve around the same world, where the crime is not simple, neither criminals are badly unable to sympathize with them, nor investigators are simple personalities that achieve justice and then sleep in the eye.

Between the investigator and the criminal is a thin thread

Crime films and series usually tend to present their heroes at the moment of completion, as we see the investigator succeeding in arresting the criminal and receiving the expressions of praise from his colleagues and superiors. But the series “Tusk” chooses a completely different path, as his hero Tom (Mark Rovalo) overlooks us in an editorial scene inside a graduate conference, promoting to join the FBI. His appearance reveals a lot: Shagha hair invaded by gray hair, a slightly prominent abdomen, normal clothes without excellence, and features of a face controlled by fatigue and despair, to embody the image of a man who seems closer to defeat than him to the tournament.

The series does not present from the beginning a clear explanation for its deteriorating physical and psychological state, and all that we know is that he has moved away from field work with a personal decision and for reasons that the first episodes did not disclose. However, emergency conditions for him to return, to find himself forced to work with a small team of 3 new customers at the FBI.

On the other hand, the series introduces us to Ruby (Tom Belveri), who works for a garbage collection company from homes, but secretly heads a simple neurotic organization consisting of 3 people who storm only the homes of a gang of gangs of drug traffickers.

Federal investigator and garbage mosque are intersecting the house when Tom takes the task of arresting Ruby, who does not know the FBI. However, his crimes may ignite a fierce war between the gangs of motorcyclists, and spoil the balance that the US government is keen to maintain between these gangs to reduce the violence resulting from their conflicts.

Ruby and Tom can be considered on both sides of the opposite, one of which is a criminal and the other is a federal investigator, but their common characteristics are more than those competing, both of whom are a father devoted to his children and members of his family completely, and a father in which he carries a miserable wound as a result of the absence of the partner, which was absent in both cases in a very dramatic way. The creators of the spectators are intelligently pushed to sympathy even with the homes of Ruby as a result of his motives that can be fully understood, despite the violence that dominates his actions and the reactions of his explosive actions when he is exposed to the least provocation.

“Tusk” is good and evil in a dysfunctional balance

The “Tusk” and “Mer of East Town” series combines many common denominators, exceeding their hero’s affiliation with the police category. Both works take place in small towns in the US state of Pennsylvania, where the place is reflected in the misery of the gloomy and its local dialect on the nature of the narration. The two series belong to the crime drama based on a central mystery in which the question is repeated: Who is the perpetrator? But the goal does not stop when the killer is revealed, but rather extends to the dismantling of the local community and monitoring its complications and family and humanitarian crises.

The characters in both work are far from the ideal image of heroes. In “Mir of East Town”, we follow the investigator “Mir”, who suffers from personal losses, addiction and family difficulties, while Task provides burdened characters with a heavy past and internal conflicts, which gives the atmosphere darker and realistic and focuses on pain and guilt more than traditional suspense elements.

The most prominent is that the official and religious institutions, which are supposed to protect the fabric of society, appear in the two actions that are failing or complicit, are preoccupied with their own interests at the expense of values ​​and principles. Instead of a protection factor, it becomes part of the structural crisis that American society suffers from.

We find that the FBI allocates a team of investigators to search for the perpetrator in cases of storming homes not for the purpose of preserving the lives and money of citizens, but rather because these homes belong to members of a gang with influence and power, and the attack on them causes an imbalance in the balance of criminal society in Philadelphia. Thus, the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigations from the strong arm of the US Department of Justice, the protector of civilians, turns into a mere welding gang that is completely known for its criminal activity and its contribution to drug trafficking.

Which removes the nobility from the task, even if Tom and his colleagues are doing it for noble reasons, they are part of a greater entity that only aims to protect his personal interests. On the other hand, we find Ruby – who carries the stigma of the criminal who broke into homes and the murderer – has more humane, logical and understandable motives and can be sympathetic to it. This imbalance in the basis of the conflict of good and evil reflects the real imbalance in American society.

One of the most prominent strengths in the series “Tusk” is that it combines an elaborate representative performance with a remarkable dramatic depth. It is not sufficient to work by providing a crime that is solved on the roof, but rather dives into the effect of guilt, loss and repentance on its heroes, revealing family conflicts and personal tragedies in a way that makes the viewer sympathize even with those who are considered guilty. This depth is accompanied by a tight visual employment, as it transmits the realistic imaging on the outskirts of Philadelphia.