Even a heroic detective like 'Cross' can't save this Prime Video adaptation

Alex Cross has always been a formidable figure in crime fiction.

As the star of James Patterson's successful novels, he's a super sharp intellect with a Ph. D. in psychology who also happens to be a Black police detective. And, for the new Prime Video series Cross, he's an unapologetically Black man, fully capable of using assumptions the world makes about him – and his race – to catch the bad guys.

That notion surfaces early in the series, with star Aldis Hodge playing Cross as a confident, calculating figure – placing his crotch uncomfortably close to the face of a racist, white murder suspect during an interrogation to play on assumptions about Black, um, manhood.

It's a bold move that demonstrates Cross' skill at using his intellect and psychological training to win the day – which is, unfortunately, undercut by the scene's unsatisfying resolution, when the detective concludes that the suspect confessed by saying a subtle literary reference. (Good luck making that one fly in court).

This is an unfortunate pattern that hobbles Cross; great character work undone by terrible plotting or ham-handed writing.

A superhero detective

Hodge, who played Hawkman in the 2022 film Black Adam, still looks something like a superhero as Cross — amping up the physicality for a character who seems buffer than previous iterations played by Tyler Perry and Morgan Freeman.

Built like a weightlifter, this Alex Cross stays in shape by boxing, but solves crimes mostly with his mind, rarely forgetting that he's a Black man working in a system which often underestimates or misrepresents him.

The show also leans into Black culture, showing Cross navigating different worlds of his Washington, D.C., hometown – profiling at a swanky fundraiser one moment and quizzing suspects in a tough neighborhood the next – while digging into the suspicious death of a young Black activist with a checkered past.

There is so much that works here, from casting Hodge – who has seemed on the verge of major stardom for years – to giving him a great sidekick in Isaiah Mustafa, who plays his partner, John. Yes, the dude who used to be the Old Spice guy has great chemistry with Hodge, urging Cross to better handle the emotional fallout stemming from his wife's unsolved murder.

The series also leans into the biggest conundrum facing Black police officers on TV these days: a lack of trust among the Black people they hope to help. When the sister of the murdered activist shouts names of real-life Black people killed by police at Cross and his partner while they question her – implying that her brother might have been murdered by officers, too – they don't have much of a reply besides, "trust us."

Great characters trapped by clunky writing

Unfortunately, this series undercuts its great characters by stranding them in a twisty plot about a serial killer that just doesn't come together. And because Cross has so many authentic touches, it makes the outlandishness of its core mysteries even less palatable.

The show also doesn't do a great job explaining why a psychologist as sharp as Cross spends so much energy working for an institution that doesn't appreciate him and doesn't seem great at serving the community he loves.

Cross tells his girlfriend about struggling with a "hero complex"-style compulsion to save people, which doesn't really resolve the question. This is an issue I've seen in other law enforcement TV shows with prominent Black characters, like Law & Order and S.W.A.T. – the struggle to explain why Black people stay on the force at a time when police brutality against folks who look like them is so prominent.

I had hoped Prime Video's series would offer a better incarnation of the character from James Patterson's bestselling novels than we've seen before. (For my money, Freeman's excellent work as Cross in the middling 1997 film Kiss the Girls remains the gold standard).

Instead, we got a promising vision undone by scripts that just didn't know what to do with the compelling characters they created.