Taylor Kitsch Is a Charismatic David Koresh in ‘Waco’

You would think that if there were something newsworthy about “Waco,” a six-episode dramatization of the 1993 Branch Davidian shootout and siege, it would be how it depicts a key event in the radicalization of America’s far right. Or, secondarily, how it resonates as the first major offering of the Paramount Network, a new cable channel. (It’s on your grid where Spike used to be.)

But in a sign of how quickly one cultural forest fire follows another these days, “Waco” has been in the news because of the channel’s decision to remove from the credits the name of one of the show’s backers — The Weinstein Co. The Weinstein Co. became corporation non grata after the Harvey Weinstein sexual-abuse revelations.

Of course, one of the things that David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian religious sect, was known for was his habit of sexually appropriating other members’ wives. In “Waco,” a tepid, movie-of-the-week treatment of a fateful calamity in which more than 80 people died, Koresh’s appetites are a tolerated vexation among the Branch Davidians and an opportunity for the filmmakers to inject some humor. Turning on his irresistible twinkle, Taylor Kitsch, as Koresh, tells a new recruit that he’ll be expected to remain celibate because “I’ve assumed the burden of sex for us all.”

Paramount’s publicity materials claim that “Waco,” based on a pair of memoirs — one by a Branch Davidian survivor, David Thibodeau, and one by an FBI hostage negotiator, Gary Noesner — “will forever change the way the dramatic siege will be viewed.” There’s nothing to back up that claim in the three episodes available for review, which follow a familiar trajectory from the earlier Ruby Ridge standoff through the botched raid, by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, on the Branch Davidians’ complex outside Waco.

Providing scant background on Koresh and practically none on the by then 40-year history of the Branch Davidians — they seem to have sprung whole from the Texas plains — “Waco” is a workmanlike summary of events that paints a largely, some might say excessively, sympathetic portrait of Koresh and his followers.

This is likely because of the demands of dramatic compression rather than any propagandizing on the part of the show’s makers. (It was created by the brothers John Erick and Drew Dowdle, best known for genre thrillers like “No Escape” and “As Above/So Below.”) The historical record is clear that the ATF and the FBI severely mishandled both the Ruby Ridge and Waco situations, and in the show’s simplistic account, most depictions of the agencies involve arrogance and incompetence. The major exception to this, not surprisingly, is the portrayal of Noesner (a typically intense Michael Shannon).

The visuals also tend to be stacked against the government — flak jackets and Humvees versus moms in jeans shielding their screaming children. The Branch Davidians are generally shown as an amiable, levelheaded, fun-loving bunch, who stockpile guns in preparation for the end times but also play a credible cover of “My Sharona” at a local bar.

But the key choice here was the casting of Kitsch, the “Friday Night Lights” star who radiates sincerity and has an overflowing charisma that the real-life Koresh is said to have lacked. From the first shot of Koresh, staring soulfully through his aviator frames at an incoming government helicopter, he registers not as a manipulative crackpot but as a true believer who got in over his head.

The Waco timeline — a bloody, startling shootout leading to a 51-day siege — is the reverse of a conventional Hollywood tragedy, and it remains to be seen how the Dowdles will handle that challenge. (Episode 3 ends as the siege is beginning in earnest.) In the meantime, if you’d like to re-examine the rise of the anti-government movement in the early 1990s, there are better sources out there, beginning with the PBS documentaries “Ruby Ridge” and “Oklahoma City,” both available on Netflix.

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Additional Information:

‘Waco’

Begins Wednesday on Paramount Network