‘Nocturne’ Review: Liev Schreiber and Stephen Graham Get Handcuffed by Clichés in Apple’s Dully Competent Serial Killer Thriller

Zazie Beetz also stars in the series from Rowan Joffé, based on a Swedish novel about a retired cop who must once again confront the murderer he helped put behind bars. Apple's 'Nocturne' stars Liev Schreiber, Stephen Graham and Zazie Beetz in a thriller about a former cop facing a serial killer from his past. Of all the sins anyone might accuse Jurek Walter (Stephen Graham) of committing, failing to play his narrative role could never be one of them. The convicted murderer is first seen inducing a man to bash in his own skull, purely through the power of persuasion. He’s so insidious that the nurses at Riverside Psychiatric warn each other not to speak to him, and so cunning that he worms his way into the misguided empathies of one of them anyway.

Jurek is a master manipulator in the Hannibal Lecter mold, and Nocturne will waste no time letting you know it. What Jurek is not, however, is anything but a master manipulator in the Hannibal Lecter mold. Nor is the rest of Nocturne, also starring Liev Schreiber and Zazie Beetz, anything but exactly what you’d expect from an Apple serial killer thriller, at least in the seven (of 10) hours sent to critics. For those who love the genre for its familiarity, that may be enough.