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The Wire - The Complete Fourth Season
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List Price: $59.99
Our Price: $49.99
Your Save: $ 10.00 ( 17% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Starring: Dominic West, Wendell Pierce, Sonja Sohn, Lance Reddick, Aidan Gillen
Directed By: Daniel Attias
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0026359392726
Format: AC-3
Label: Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Number Of Items: 4
Publisher: Hbo Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2007-12-04
Running Time: 780
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
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Editorial Reviews:
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With the fall of Barksdale and the ascent of young Marlo Stanfield as West Baltimore's drug king, the detail continues to "follow the money" up the political ladder in the midst of a mayoral election that pits the black incumbent, Clarence Royce, against an ambitious white councilman, Tommy Carcetti. The theme of urban education is explored through four new characters â€" Michael Lee, Namond Brice, Randy Wagstaff and "Dukie" Weems as they traverse adolescence in the stunted, drug-saturated streets of West Baltimore. The world that awaits these boys and the American commitment to equal opportunity are depicted brilliantly in the edgy, all too realistic Season 4 of The Wire.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Comment: The fourth and penultimate season of The Wire sees the show moving into new territory. At the end of Season 3 the Barksdale organisation was finally destroyed for good, McNulty found himself some happiness and Daniels got a promotion. The goals set out in Season 1 had been achieved. So, where next for the Major Crimes Unit and the players of the game?
Season 4 follows several storylines in tandem. The MCU is now chasing down Marlo Stanfield, whose organisation has picked up from where Barksdale left off and now rules over most of the western district of Baltimore. However, their rise to power has apparently been accomplished with virtually no deaths, bemusing Lester Freamon. With the wiretaps also coming up empty, Freamon's attempts to follow the money trail attract the ire of his superiors and pretty soon the MCU is all but shut down and Freamon and Kima end up working in Homicide instead. Elsewhere, McNulty is enjoying the (relatively) easy life as a beat cop, Daniels is heading up his own force and Carver is maturing as an officer, with only Herc apparently resisting any change, at least until he catches the Mayor's eye (in a rather interesting manner) and finds his star rising as a result. But overall the police side of things, at least to start off with, seems pretty quiet.
On the streets Marlo's rise to power has been achieved with the help of his two enforcers, the terrifyingly cold-blooded and ruthless Chris and Snoop, who have come up with a brilliant scheme to hide the resulting bodies from the police. Proposition Joe, who has inherited most of the surviving Barksdale crew, is continuing his efforts to entice Marlo into the cooperative to little avail, so he hatches a scheme to get Marlo on his side by setting up a war between him and the indefatigable Omar. Unfortunately, this leads to a pretty bloody and complicated state of affairs for all concerned.
Elsewhere, Tommy Carcetti is running for the position of mayor, but the race is a difficult three-way contest between him, the incumbent Royce and fellow councilman Tony Gray. Unfortunately, no sooner is the winner in office then they are delivered two massive problems: how to handle the proven incompetence of police commissioner Burrell when they cannot fire him for political reasons, and the discovery that they have a jaw-dropping $54 million budget deficit due to overspending in the schools.
At the same time, Prez, the former MCU member fired from the force in Season 3 after accidentally killing another officer, has started a new life as a maths teacher. His class is noisy, uncooperative, disrespectful and sometimes shockingly violent (one student slashes another's face open with a razor in his first week). However, the primary narrative for Season 4 focuses on four of the students in Prez's class - Randy, Dukie, Namond and Michael. These are all new characters, although with some ties to existing ones: Namond is the son of former Barksdale enforcer Wee-Bey and Michael is a member of Cutty's gym.
The scaling back of the other characters in favour of following these four youngsters around may seem like an odd move, but it pays off brilliantly. Having tackled the police, criminals, politicians, and dockworkers, Season 4 is about teachers, students and the role of education in shaping the lives of the young. Early in the season a divide is identified between those kids who could make something for themselves and the corner kids who don't want to do anything other than stand on the streets and sell drugs to make money, and where the four main characters fall on that divide and how they swap sides and change over the course of the season is fascinating to watch. At first glance Michael seems to be the most positive and promising of the four, but his interest in sports and growing cooperation in class hides a bitter and painful home life that soon leads him into Marlo's circle, whilst happy-go-lucky Randy makes a series of mistakes that prove costly. In fact it's Namond, who is selling drugs from the start and being schooled for a life of crime by his father from behind bars, who undergoes the most interesting and seismic shifts in character, all depicted through the brilliant-as-usual writing and some fine performances from the young actors involved.
Andre Royo as Bubs also has to be singled out for mention, as Bubs hits rock-bottom in this season and Royo's depiction of a man whose already crappy life disintegrates completely is absolutely stunning. At the same time, Dominic West's low availability for the season means that McNulty doesn't appear very much, meaning more screen time for Freamon (Clarke Peters) and Bunk (Wendell Pierce), which is a very welcome move. McNulty does return to prominence in the last two episodes, which set up the direction of the final season pretty well.
The Wire: Season 4 (*****) is as superbly-written, brilliantly funny, expertly-acted and stomach-churningly tragic as ever, except possibly even moreso than the first three seasons. If there is a negative point, it's that Season 4 is the most epic and sprawling season to date, and it takes a while for all the disparate storylines to start pulling together. But when they do, the result is the most powerful and gripping final run of episodes yet.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best season of any television show ever.
Comment: I assume if you're reading this review you own, or at least have seen, seasons 1 through 3 of the critically acclaimed program The Wire. If not what are you doing; go out and buy or rent or try to borrow from someone the previous seasons, and start from Season 1. Do not, I repeat do not, skip a single episode much less a season. That might be fine for some TV shows, but not The Wire. The Wire unfolds like a great novel, building on itself piece by piece, and with a scope beyond anything done in television beforehand. It's a show that requires dedication, and with that dedication you will absorb some of the most satisfying experiences you have ever felt from a TV show.
For those that have seen seasons 1 through 3, rest assured that Season 4 isn't only on par with those first three season; in my opinion it suprasses them. Every Wire season ads a new layer to the Baltimore culture, and this season it's the school. For me, as someone who went to inner city schools though not in Baltimore, it was aghast how much I could relate my experiences to those of the kids on the show. There are four major characters--Michael, Namond, Randy, and Dukie--and all are performed by the young actors very well.
I'm not going to give much away. The first episode, like the first episode of the other seasons, purposely frustrates the viewer with many new characters brand new plotlines not always clear, and it's hard to make total sense of it even by the third episode. The more the season progresses the more you appreciate that they did confuse you in the beginning because there always is a payoff. This is the first season that doesn't rely much on the Barksdale crew, but it picks up at the street very well, as it does with the Law, and at the Hall. Along with the School all four aspects of the Wire connect in a way so seamless you're amazed television is capable of something so grand.
Special features include six Audio commentaries, and two nice documentaries on the show. One of the commentaries includes all four actors playing the kids I mentioned above, along with the actor who plays Prop Joe, and it's one of the more memorable commentaries I have seen.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The 1st time N my life I've ever been glued 2 a TV
Comment: Short & Sweet. Didn't watch this series before it was taken off the air. Heard all the rave reviews. Did my research and ordered Season 4 (to start with).
Easily the most dynamic TV series of my lifetime. Incredible acting (and from such young kids), brilliant writing and great storylines.
Powerful, engaging, thought-provoking, eye-popping, emotional, deep, inspiring, gripping, maddening.
There aren't enough words 2 describe this show.
I think what makes this season so real is the fact you'll look at the four boys and easily place them in your own lives as people you'd know. So to see them face real world problems and make life/death decisions at such young ages and with relatively little information, it hits home hard.
This is what I call "Reality Television." What makes this show all the more impactful is the fact that, sadly, most of these scenarios and portrayals are at least loosely based on real events that went down (and continue 2 go down) in the streets of Baltimore.
I believe a stat from the Special Features Documentary says that 80% of the characters depicted were based on real people! If that doesn't draw viewers in, I don't know what else will?
This DVD series is a must have.
Period.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great stuff
Comment: Great stuff. I feel like I know the whole g'dam town of Baltimore, from top to bottom. Seriously, it's like these people aren't even actors. In fact, you can't even imagine them as actors, being away from the set, that's how good they are. It doesn't even seem possible that they're acting. There's probably not too much higher praise you can give an actor than this. This is like going to see a great movie at the Cineplex, only the effing thing is 100 hours long, and you get to watch it go on and on, and the quality never goes down-- just stays at the same high level. Thanks guys. Great work.
Larry W. Phillips
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Life" isn't fair...it's "life"...
Comment: Just finished the set...3 days. I find irony in the fact that one of the most beautiful things ever created was born of ugliness. If aliens were to come down to Earth, curious about what it meant to be human, I would show them "The Wire". I don't feel much hope, day to day. It's tough to be positive. Erosion. Winners and losers. You can't win in this life without being a little evil it seems. No good deed and all of that...just watch the show. It's a gift in a world that eats corporate s^%t and begs for more. Embrace the truth, do what you can...subtract from the evil, don't add. All you can do...maybe you'll make it...
..but probably not.
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