Let's cut to the chase: This is not your parents' "American Gigolo."
Showtime's dark series shares a name, the Blondie theme song and some characters with the 1980 film that launched Richard Gere's career, but the eight-part television adaptation, about a high-end male escort who's framed for murder, is nothing like the plush original from director Paul Schrader. Those looking for a loyal retelling of the blockbuster, or even a kitschy version of the cocaine-fueled, Armani-suited original will surely be crushed by the gritty, contemporary realism of this revision.
Yet the "American Gigolo" of 2022 holds its own as an engrossing murder mystery that plays out across present-day Los Angeles and over a series of flashbacks to the late 1990s and early 2000s. The pilot introduces us to former gigolo Julian Kaye (Jon Bernthal) when he's suddenly exonerated of wrongful murder charges after serving 15 years in prison. He's now a tattooed, weathered hard case who somehow managed to maintain his Adonis-like body in lockup. He'd like to put his past behind him, but when he's caught up in a conspiracy that's connected to the old homicide, he's thrust back into the fray.
