Regular Price $59.98

Starring: Dominic West,  Sonja Sohn,  Jr. Larry Gilliard,  Wendell Pierce,  Idris Elba, 
Directed By: Clark Johnson, 
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Release Date: 2002-06-02
Studio: HBO Home Video
Format: AC-3,  Closed-captioned,  Color,  Dolby,  Dubbed,  DVD-Video,  Subtitled,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about The Wire - The Complete First Season

Product Description
From David Simon creator and co-writer of HBO's triple Emmy-winning mini-series The Corner this unvarnished highly realistic HBO series follows a single sprawling drug and murder investigation in Baltimore. Told from the point of view of both the police and their targets the series captures a universe of subterfuge and surveillance where easy distinctions between good and evil and crime and punishment are challenged at every turn.Running Time: 780 min.System Requirements:Running Time 780 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 026359887321 Manufacturer No: 98873

Amazon.com
After one episode of The Wire you'll be hooked. After three, you'll be astonished by the precision of its storytelling. After viewing all 13 episodes of the HBO series' remarkable first season, you'll be cheering a bona-fide American masterpiece. Series creator David Simon was a veteran crime reporter from The Baltimore Sun who cowrote the book that inspired TV's Homicide, and cowriter Ed Burns was a Baltimore cop, lending impeccable street-cred to an inner-city Baltimore saga (and companion piece to The Corner) that Simon aptly describes as "a visual novel" and "a treatise on institutions and individuals" as opposed to a conventional good-vs.-evil police procedural. Owing a creative debt to the novels of Richard Price (especially Clockers), the series opens as maverick Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West, in a star-making role) is tapping into a vast network of drugs and death around southwest Baltimore's deteriorating housing projects. With a mandate to get results ASAP, a haphazard team is assembled to join McNulty's increasingly complex investigation, built upon countless hours of electronic surveillance.

The show's split-perspective plotting is so richly layered, so breathtakingly authentic and based on finely drawn characters brought to life by a perfect ensemble cast, that it defies concise description. Simon, Burns, and their cowriters control every intricate aspect of the unfolding epic; directors are top-drawer (including Clark Johnson, helmer of The Shield's finest episodes), but they are servants to the story, resulting in a TV series like no other: unpredictable, complicated, and demanding the viewer's rapt attention, The Wire is "an angry show" (in Simon's words) that refuses to comfort with easy answers to deep-rooted societal problems. Moral gray zones proliferate in a universe where ruthless killers have a logical code, and where the cops are just as ambiguous as their targets. That ambiguity extends to the ending as well; season 1 leaves several issues unresolved, leaving you begging for the even more impressive developments that await in season 2. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews for The Wire - The Complete First Season

One Of The Best Television Dramas Of All Time.
Others have written long positive reviews, so instead of going on about how great The Wire is, I'll just focus on one member of the fictional cop "cast"...Jimmy McNulty.

Now I am of the opinion that the best TV cop of all time is/was Andre Braugher's Frank Pembleton, of Homicide fame. That belief was unchallenged until detective McNulty came along.

Although his character was slightly watered-down in later seasons of The Wire, Season 1 introduces us to this driven detective in all his uncompromising glory. Witness a police detective that allows nothing to interfere with his single-minded pursuit of justice. Like a doberman with a juicy bone, McNulty is dogged and relentless. He circumvents the chain of departmental command, annoys fellow officers, treats partners poorly, breaks the rules, and refuses to compromise. He's arrogant, self-righteous, a binge drinker, an adulterer, a drunk driver, and a general all-around jerk.

But if he's on the case, you'd better believe it's going down. He'll put his own young children in danger to make certain of it.

McNulty is a mad dog in the Baltimore police department. And he might just be the best cop in TV history (sorry, Frank).

The Wire Season One? Five stars!The Wire - The Complete First Season

ONE OF TV'S BEST SHOWS EVER
'The Wire' unfolds like the best kind of novel, full of detail, nuance and memorable characters. And yet it's not a police show. It's an urban tragedy. A heartbreaking commentary on the neglected, marginalised and ignored in American cities. It's about the have's and have not's and the sheer devastation wrought by poverty and drugs.

But it's still a slam bang, unabashedly violent cops and robbers saga, chocka block with intricate plot twists, shocking, often very bloody deaths and some suprising humour.

Set in Baltimore, 'The Wire' show sets up all the cliches of a police drama and then blows them apart with brilliant scripts and a magnifcent ensemble cast that give a richness and empathy not usually seen in this type of show. The actors are simply wonderful.

The sense of gritty reality, time and place simply adds to the tragedy.The Wire - The Complete First Season

Phenomenal.
Brilliant doesn't begin to describe this series. It requires an investment of a couple of hours for the first few episodes, but after that, you're rewarded with what is simply the most thoughtful, brilliant story that's ever been on television. An unbelievably phenomenal and deep journey that gets better and better with each season.The Wire - The Complete First Season

Perfect Guy Gift
Although it's not my thing, I have to admit tat I even got into this show on DVD. Got it for my brother and nephews - they love it. If you don't know what to get for a thinking guy's guy, it's "The Wire." They now have everything through season four and think I'm the coolest aunt ever. Score!The Wire - The Complete First Season

Not for Nancy-boys or girls.
Wow. As a student of film, I have to say that this is a great show. But please, please, please don't buy it if you are boring. You may not think you are boring but take this test:

Fill in the blank...
1. C_ _ _ !
2. _ _ C _ !
3. My favorite movie is ______________ .

Answers:
1. If you don't know, you won't like the show.
2. If you didn't come up with more than two answers, you won't like the show.
3. If you answered 'The Notebook' or anything in which the starring role goes to a female that eventually cries in the movie to a Coldplay song, you won't like this show.

If you failed miserably, go buy a Hannah Montana box set instead. Go!The Wire - The Complete First Season

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