What The Critics Are Saying About ‘The Get Down’

Baz Luhrmann‘s latest endeavor The Get Down, might be his most ambitious to date; it’s a $120 million take on the rise of hip-hop and the fall of disco in the Bronx circa 1977. Between the heightened budget, impressive producers and advisors — including Grandmaster Flash, Nas, and Kurtis Blow, and a stylized vision that only Luhrmann could properly execute — the show is high risk and, potentially, high reward.

Reviews of the latest Netflix original hit the press earlier this week — our own Joe Reid calling it “a television show that deserves to be seen on its merits, if only because it’s the kind of singular production that isn’t being undertaken anywhere else” — and the consensus is that the show is really good, though certainly not perfect. Critics seem to agree that the Luhrmann-directed 90 minute pilot falls short in comparison to later episodes and that The Get Down doesn’t hit its stride until episode three or four. Also unanimous are the raves about the show-stopping performances of the two virtually unknown leads, Justice Smith and Herizen F. Guardiola.

The first six episodes of season one hit Netflix August 12th—that’s one week from today!— with the second half of the season expected in 2017. Keep reading for a closer look at what critics are saying about The Get Down.

Variety (Sonia Saraiya):

Saraiya, who called Luhrmann “a master of gussied-up shlock,” enjoyed the varied plots, which have “a deliberately off-putting messiness,” style — “Some scenes are filmed like musical numbers on Glee; some, like action sequences from Bruce Lee’s kung fu films,” and accurate historical depiction — “The show’s pastiche resolves into a gorgeous, fantastical tapestry of music legend and urban history, a reclamation of, and a love letter to, a marginalized community of a certain era,” while calling into question the first episode’ s lack of focus — “the first episode, at a bloated 92 minutes, is a terrible introduction to the show…[it] is too long, too confusing, and labored, rather than dreamlike; it feels and is workshopped to death.”

Saraiya also called the show a “vital, radical work” and praised Smith’s performance saying, “What saves the show — for those willing to invest in a three-to-four episode payoff — is Justice Smith’s preternaturally brilliant performance as Zeke.”

The bottom line: “The Get Down is a beautiful mess, a flawed show interspersed with moments of remarkable brilliance.”

IndieWire (Ben Travers):

Travers awarded The Get Down an A calling it “a wholly unique and deeply compelling feat of television.” Travers loved the unique combination of music, film, and television in the show. “By taking a musical genre overexposed and misunderstood in the modern day and breaking it down in the past to its component parts, Luhrmann has created a fantastic and fresh blend of his own,” Travers said.  “A TV show told as a film, a music video told as a six-hour miniseries and an original story holding more truth than most true stories.”

Travers praised the shows leads saying, “its two leads miraculously hold it all together…Guardiola really proves herself in the intimate moments with her co-star, Justice Smith. As Ezekiel “Books” Figuero, Smith is a true discovery. He and Guardiola achieve an impressive level of chemistry for actors with such short resumes, but the demands placed on Smith’s shoulders are immense…and never once does he falter.”

The bottom line: “The Get Down [is] more than a heart-swelling love story, more than a fresh perspective on the TV scene, more than minority story never before told and more than an astounding musical production.”

The New York Times (Jon Caramanica):

The Times, which takes a historical angle while reviewing the show, applauded The Get Down‘s new take on ethnically diverse teenagers and the realistic depiction of unfortunate circumstances and tough times saying, “The Get Down is more like a secret superhero story, one with black and brown teenagers as the heroes.”

The bottom line: “The Get Down takes a period and place that’s often approached with dutiful naturalism and sobriety about difficult circumstances and infuses it with light touches of magical realism and bursts of palpable otherworldly joy.”

Deadline (Dominic Patten):

Patten calls The Get Down “ambitious, exciting and yet [a] sometimes unwieldy affair.” Taking a note from the show itself, Patten speaks of the show in musical terms. “The Get Down is not just the sum of its much-sampled parts but all about the groove – even if it takes a bit to find it. Think of this complicated, Bronx-based depiction not as a classic album but a very good and rich sampling binge-worthy one that truly kicks in around Track 3 or so.”

While Patten readily admits that the shows is far from perfect, he contends that the fun and culturally accurate depiction is enough to make a worthy watch. The Get Down “can be fickle in its aesthetics but also a hell of a lot of mash-up fun, with a strapping cultural and personal coming-of-age story at its hip-hop-history core.”

The bottom line: “Once it gets going, Luhrmann’s streaming-service debut has a lot more hits than misses as this version of the Bronx 1977 creatively burns brightly.”

TVLine (Michael Slezak):

Slezak, who awarded the show a B, said that while “after three-and-a-half hours of action, The Get Down‘s tone still seems to be a work in progress,” the show’s two stars make it worth the watch. “Not only does The Get Down soar when the babyfaced duo enter each other’s orbits, but their musical moments pump crayon-red blood into the show’s vascular system whenever its less vibrant subplots begin to meander.”

The bottom line: “The Moulin Rouge director creates a work that’s sometimes ridiculous, sometimes sublime and occasionally both.”

The Hollywood Reporter (Tim Goodman):

Goodman discusses the plight of the pilot and how, when Luhrmann steps down as director, the show vastly improves. “It suffers from a 90-minute pilot that will be divisive in its aesthetic choices — think West Side Story, not Spike Lee. The saving grace for The Get Down seems to be getting rid of the driving force that helped get it made in the first place — Luhrmann.” But the show “rises again in the next two episodes to give all the crazy a chance at becoming something really good.”

Goodman later praises the talents of the cast and argues that, despite its flaws, The Get Down, is still pretty good. “Given the immense talents of the cast and the understandably epic approach to the story, it’s also arguable that however you choose to make The Get Down, all the good stuff and the fascinating history will be strong enough to overcome dubious creative choices.”

The bottom line: “If you don’t get completely put off by the pilot, there’s hope.”

[Where to stream The Get Down]