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83Despite the somewhat strained setup, Banshee is a kick: ultraviolent, over-the-top, and wickedly fun. [11 Jan 2013, p.80]
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80Its smartness comes shining through despite the claptrap (none worse than the parade of sex scenes, soft-porn variety, whose noisiness is exceeded only by their unconvincingness); its story, littered with intriguingly repellent characters, like Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen), local evil tycoon, grows ever more enticing.
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80It's the characters of Banshee and their labyrinth of relationships that make the show an engrossing, entertaining portrait of a fictional small town.
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75It has a solid pedigree. It's also part of Cinemax's effort to expand its original programming. That effort pays off with Banshee.
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75It's all much better than it sounds, and more importantly, like "Strike Back," is written better than you'd expect.
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70It does what it sets out to do reasonably well without breaking my brain in the process.
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70The show doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is--a violent, sexy, somewhat cheesy, but generally entertaining genre drama--and that makes it easier to like.
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70Like True Blood, Banshee can be preposterously entertaining, or perhaps entertainingly preposterous.
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70Yes, it can often sound like a pulp setup bound to go sideways, but Banshee ends up being taut, entertaining and smart enough, and you won't completely turn your brain off.
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60While it's emphatically not a great show, it is an overheated yet intriguing one, driven more by visuals than words--and if you don't mind that its gory action and soap-opera plots aren't yet matched by dialogue and performance, it's worth a look.
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60Banshee is a mangy mutt of a TV show and doesn't care if you know it.
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58A slow-pokey drama punctuated by shocking violence and sex.
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50Banshee has has elements of "Justified," "Big Love," Ball's "True Blood" and, of course, the film "Witness." What it doesn't have, at least in the first two episodes, is anything new to say, about small towns, power, corruption, fear, crime or love.
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50The show has some unorthodox elements, but feels fairly cliched in most of its beats, largely serving as an excuse for bouts of grisly violence and gratuitous sex.
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50Banshee's not a terrible show. At times it can be entertaining. But at best it's terribly, entertainingly superfluous.
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50What looks like a flat noir thriller could still make for a pretty entertaining police procedural.
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50Neither a clear message nor steady mood can be properly discerned amid the taxing commotion.
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50Banshee is baloney, but viewed as pure camp, there are some good action sequences and amusing moments.
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42Its overall implausibility and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink plotting work against what little promise Banshee has.
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40Banshee has the audacity to behave as though its bloody violence, implausible set-up and studied ugliness is somehow vanguard television. In fact, it's just more of the same.