‘Black Bird’: One inmate tries to outwit the other in taut prison series on Apple TV+

Jimmy (Taron Egerton, right) befriends and tries to coax a confession out of fellow inmate Larry (Paul Walter Hauser) on “Black Bird.” (Apple TV+)

A very early scene in the intense and engrossing Apple TV+ limited series is set in the Chicago of November 1996, with Taron Egerton’s macho, supremely self-confident Jimmy Keene manning the bar in his bachelor pad while his high school football buddies from Kankakee watch old footage of Jimmy’s glory days on the gridiron. As “Mr. Brownstone” by Guns N’ Roses blasts on the soundtrack, Jimmy climbs into his candy apple-red sportscar and roars off to a warehouse, where a drug deal quickly goes sideways.

It feels as if we’re in for a slick, raucous crime thriller on the order of films such as “Blow” or “American Hustle” or series such as “Narcos.”