Criminal Record review: Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo shine in Apple TV Plus' police drama

“Well come on, then, you must have more ghoulish tales for us,” a man says to Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi) in the opening scene of Apple TV+’s drama Criminal Record, which premieres January 10. “I got a million,” growls Hegarty. Out of those million, the story Criminal Record is concerned with is straightforward on the surface: More than a decade previously, Hegarty arrested Errol Mathis (Tom Moutchi), who confessed to killing his partner Adelaide Burrows and is now serving a 24-year prison sentence. The ghoulish tale, though, isn’t so much the murder itself, but the way in which it was handled by Hegarty and his cronies, nicknamed the 62s, at the time.

It’s Cush Jumbo’s Detective Sergeant June Lenker who forces the case back into the open, when she is asked to review an anonymous 999 call in which a woman says her partner is being violent, and has confessed to killing his ex with the same knife he now uses on her. There’s not much excitement at first, with Criminal Record determined to show the “reality” of police work: Lenker listens back to the call, performs database searches, highlights a printout, and eats a salad at her desk while listening again to that emergency call before finally concluding the woman must be referring to Adelaide Burrows and Errol Mathis.

When she moves away from her desk, it’s to visit Hegarty and quiz him about the case. Lenker’s trip is in vain; Hegarty is painfully cold, clearly hiding something, and the pair clash instantly. What unravels over eight episodes is initially framed as Lenker’s attempt to seek justice for Errol and to find and protect the anonymous caller. In reality, the caller is forgotten for large periods of time, and Errol’s case becomes a vehicle for the show to interrogate modern-day police forces.

Criminal Record is a show that speaks to a United Kingdom reckoning with the despicable acts of its biggest police force, although its depiction and interrogation of the way the police operate has wider appeal. Close to the show’s London setting, the city’s real Metropolitan Police has for decades been battling racism allegations. In 2023, it was found to be institutionally racist, sexist, and homophobic; it has been embroiled in scandal after scandal since the pandemic began, and is now trying to right its image. Criminal Record draws heavily on reality. At the end of episode one, both Hegarty and Lenker tune in to the radio to hear Assistant Chief Commissioner Claudia Mathew (Georgina Rich) telling listeners that “we need a modern police service worthy of the values of this great city of ours.”

The clash of old guard and new, through Lenker and Hegarty, is what drives the show, and it’s when they’re on screen—and especially when they’re facing off against each other—that Criminal Record is at its best. Capaldi and Jumbo could phone it in and still be better than most actors out there. And they elevate the script and its stereotypes of a brash, young, Black detective versus a grizzled and troubled older white one.

The pair are equally watchable when they’re in moments of confrontation as they are in moments of quiet, but it’s in the latter they’re most electric, such as when Lenker fearfully guides her teenage son on the cautions he should take as a Black boy or when Hegarty comes to a realization as he takes Lenker through Adelaide Burrows’ case. Jumbo and Capaldi have plenty to dig their teeth into. Their characters are layered until the very last moment of the show, and their acting keeps you guessing.

But it’s as if, after putting two interesting characters together in Lenker and Hegarty, the writers ran out of steam for everyone else. There are too many characters who are underdeveloped or only there to make a point in Lenker and Hegarty’s narrative before they disappear again, too many unanswered questions, and too many small things that don’t seem plausible. Among those underserved are Errol and his mother Doris (Cathy Tyson), who has been futilely protesting her son’s innocence for years. Lenker’s mother Maureen (Zoe Wanamaker) has the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and her main function seems to be to remind Lenker that her father suffered from police racism. Hegarty’s daughter is two-note, while Sonya (Aisha Kala), who is fighting Errol’s case, barely registers most of the time. Hegarty’s police buddies could be found in any gritty cop show. Most frustrating is Lenker’s partner Leo (Stephen Campbell Moore), who is awful in the way those who pretend to be decent are. He’s a good stepfather to Jacob and seemingly liberal and enlightened, but multiple times tries to tell his wife when and where racism does and doesn’t exist.

But this isn’t a show about any of those people. It’s a show about Hegarty, Lenker, what happens when reputations are threatened, and how we are failed by those who are meant to protect us. It asks questions of how far people can, should, and must go to do what they think is right (“There are things that nobody teaches you, things that are just understood, and sometimes if you have to go the extra mile, well, there’s no shame in that,” says Hegarty at one point.) And in all of those aspects, Criminal Record works, especially in the final episode, the show’s finest. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” promises Lenker’s boss Roy (Ian Bonar) to her at one point. Apple TV+ stumbles a little with Criminal Record, but thanks to the efforts of Capaldi and Jumbo, it manages to right itself in the end.

Criminal Record premieres January 10 on Apple TV+