The genre worship goes beyond that kind of easy homage, however. Sugar is an acolyte of classic noir, watching the old films at every opportunity and discussing them in Farrell’s genre-obligatory voice-over narration. Bolder yet, scenes of Sugar in action are intercut with clips from iconic films. A threat of violence is carried out, in tandem, by Farrell and Robert Mitchum (“The Night of the Hunter”); a nighttime drive across Los Angeles by Farrell and Amy Ryan, who plays a woman caught up in Sugar’s case, is shared with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame (“In a Lonely Place”).
These frequent past-in-present moments are probably not as exciting or sensual as they were in Protosevich’s imagination, but they do the job thematically: We see that the codes of noir and the lonely heroism of the private eye have shaped what it means to be a man for Sugar, a do-gooder with an aversion to gunplay.
And in the Hollywood matrix of the story — which expands to include Siegel’s son (Dennis Boutsikaris), a producer of trashy action flicks, and grandson (Nate Corddry), a debauched actor — everyone is doing their best to play a role that they think flatters them, including the industry machers, their family members, the hangers-on and Sugar himself. In juxtaposed scenes, the grandson, after a tough day on set, and Sugar, after a rough day at the office, both promise to do better tomorrow. Life is a soundstage, my friend.
As the early episodes of the show unfold, its success seems to depend on how well Protosevich and his crew, including the directors Adam Arkin and Fernando Meirelles, will balance the figurative with the real, the celebration of genre and medium with the actual day-to-day mystery. That the story, at every turn, reminds you of L.A. noirs you have seen before is exactly the point. But unless you are an unquestioning devotee yourself, the appeal of this kind of meta-nostalgia goes only as far as the deftness and emotional heft of its execution. And we’re not talking about “The Singing Detective” here.
On balance, though, “Sugar” has sufficient compensations, particularly in its cast. Farrell gives a relaxed and engaging, movie-star-on-his-day-off performance; moving through sunny Southern California in a dark suit and tie, he invokes both the tortured cool of Bogart and the offbeat, man-out-of-time equanimity of Elliott Gould in Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye.” Ryan is good, as you would expect, in a role custom-made for her, a kindhearted former pop star who discovers that she can play the hard-boiled tough dame.
