When you think of HBO’s classic mid-’00s series “The Wire,” it’s the characters that come to mind first — people like McNulty (Dominic West), D’Angelo, Kima (Sonja Sohn), or Stringer Bell (Idris Elba).
All of them have their place in the show’s vast tapestry, but their stories never feel manufactured or inauthentic.
Their major failures and small triumphs echo and clash against those of others, comprising the major drama of the show.
And Stringer, the ambitious climber at the top of the show’s Barksdale criminal empire, had some of the show’s most engaging material.
Of course, it helped that he was played by a future movie star.While you can now see him on the big screen fighting monstrous lions in “Beast” or playing a romantic Djinn in a George Miller film, Idris Elba’s work in “The Wire” some 20 years earlier was much more low-key.
Stringer is nothing like the typical fantasy gangster.
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