[excerpt from Arkansas Online review of the show]
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2...=entertainment
Critical Mass: Crowe's series rocks despite off-kilter tales
By Philip Martin This article was published September 18, 2016 at 1:57 a.m.
Yet embedded in this painful horror show is a smaller and nearly magical story about how
Lindsey Buckingham shows up to help out his old friend, Staton-House Band road manager Bill (Luke Wilson), who is desperately in need of an opening act. While Buckingham is no actor, he does a pretty good job of playing himself as a compassionate and emotionally alert person who is sincerely concerned about Bill's welfare -- especially about his sobriety in the face of the brutal touring schedule. Bill, we understand, is a man slowly coming apart; like many another middle-aged action hero, he's getting too old for this, uh, show. Buckingham, who evinces the gravitas of someone who has come through the maelstrom, recognizes the "Fellini meets the Monkees" circus swirling around his old friend and sensibly bails.
Buckingham pretty much saves the show -- for Bill and for us -- with this sweet, small turn, and one wonders if this isn't the story in which Crowe is more invested. (It also helps that Buckingham performs two strong songs in the episode.)
You would think that as someone with plenty of experience as critic and artist (and let's not ignore the way critics sometimes work as artists) that he'd have something more relevant to say about the dynamic between Newman and the band. But he opts instead for a cartoonish treatment that employs a lazy and inaccurate stereotype. It's like the A story is for the chumps and suckers, the slapstick-slurping masses with no feeling for nuance. And the B story is for us.
A lot of people have given up on Crowe, and there are probably plenty of others who really like his off-kilter, clumsy plots. Plenty are probably willing to accept him for what he has shown himself to be. It's probably naive to think that he's capable of so much better.