--- title: "We Own This City" year: 2022 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/we-own-this-city" fi1m_score: 75 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 15 published: "2026-09-17T13:30:11.893135+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T13:30:12.218457+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # We Own This City (2022) Created by George Pelecanos, David Simon · MPA TV-MA · Crime, Drama **Fi1m score: 75** · Critics 76 from 15 reviews *In a sentence:* Baltimore’s finest rob the citizens, then claim the overtime > David Simon and George Pelecanos return to Baltimore with a true story of police theft that runs on Jon Bernthal’s crooked sergeant. It is angry, exact and hard to look away from; it is also tangled in its timelines and fond of a speech. ## Synopsis Baltimore, in the middle of the 2010s. Sgt. Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal) runs the Gun Trace Task Force, a plain-clothes unit sent out to take guns off the street, and he does take guns off the street; he also stops cars, empties wallets and fills in the overtime sheets afterwards. Under him are Daniel Hersl (Josh Charles), Momodu ‘G Money’ Gondo (McKinley Belcher III) and Jemell Rayam (Darrell Britt-Gibson), each with his own habits. Nicole Steele (Wunmi Mosaku), a federal civil rights lawyer, arrives to work out why the city no longer trusts its police, while homicide detective Sean M. Suiter (Jamie Hector) works his cases on the same streets. The story moves between the squad’s years on the job and the interview rooms that follow. ## Review David Simon and George Pelecanos made [*The Wire*](https://film.one/tv/the-wire) in Baltimore, and they have come back to the same city with a case that needs no invention. The Gun Trace Task Force was a plain-clothes police unit that took guns off the street and money off the people it stopped, and *We Own This City*, drawn from Justin Fenton’s book about the case, tells how it happened and how long everyone let it. Six episodes, all directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green. It is good, and it is worth your evening. It is not *The Wire*, and it is not trying to be. Jon Bernthal is the reason to start it. His Wayne Jenkins walks into a roll call in the first episode and gives a talk about how to police a corner, and the talk is not stupid; he believes it, and the officers believe him. Bernthal plays him with his chest out and his arms swinging, a man who never enters a room so much as arrives in it, and he keeps the charm and the theft in the same body without ever winking at us. The scene that made us angry, and we were angry for some time, is a plain one: a car is stopped, a man is searched, and cash goes from his pocket into a police pocket while the paperwork calls it a seizure. Nobody raises a voice. That is the point, and Green knows not to underline it. The squad around him is cast with care. Josh Charles plays Daniel Hersl as a man who hits people because he can and has stopped noticing that he does it, and Charles refuses to make him interesting, which is the right call. McKinley Belcher III and Darrell Britt-Gibson, as Gondo and Rayam, spend much of their time in interview rooms across from federal agents Erika Jensen (Dagmara Dominczyk) and John Sieracki (Donald Patrick Harvey), describing what they did in the bored detail of men describing a job. Jamie Hector’s Sean Suiter is the watcher, a homicide detective who sees more than he says, and Hector gives the series most of its quiet. Yaron Orbach shoots the city in flat grey daylight and orange night, with the camera on the shoulder for the raids so that doors and hallways come at us the way they come at the officers. Valeria De Felice’s squad rooms are plastic chairs and dented lockers, and Dona Adrian Gibson puts the task force in tactical vests over t-shirts, dressed for a war they have declared on their own. Kris Bowers keeps the score low and mostly out of the way. Joshua Raymond Lee has the hardest job, cutting between at least three periods, and he flags them with dates on screen; even so, we lost our footing more than once in the first two episodes and had to work out from a haircut where we were. The weaker strand is Nicole Steele’s. Wunmi Mosaku is good in it, tired and precise, but her scenes are mostly meetings, and in the meetings people explain what the series has already shown us. The writing room of Pelecanos, William F. Zorzi, D. Watkins, Ed Burns and Simon has a great deal to say about how a police department ends up like this, about Kevin Davis (Delaney Williams) at the top of it and the union and the courts, and when it says it through Jenkins and a car stop it lands. When it says it through Steele and a conference table, we felt lectured, and we started to notice how much of each hour was talk. Most critics have liked it, and so did we. The one serious dissent we have read calls it preachy and hemmed in by the facts, and that is a fair description of perhaps a fifth of it. Against Simon’s own standards it is shorter, plainer and less patient than his best work; it does not build a city so much as prosecute one department within it. On its own terms, as six hours about how a squad of thieves came to be called a task force, it does the job. Watch two episodes a night rather than one a week. The timelines make more sense while they are still fresh, and the anger has less time to cool. *Fi1m score 75, published 17 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (15) - **Variety**, Joshua Alston (90/100, inferred): The critic deems it a perfect marriage of material and its creators, a stunningly executed tragedy about institutional rot in policing. Reinaldo Marcus Green’s direction of action, interrogations and ripples is highlighted alongside the journalistic rigor of Simon and Pelecanos. [Read](https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/we-own-this-city-david-simon-hbo-1235239346/) - **Vulture**, Jen Chaney (85/100, inferred): The limited series stands as its own compelling story indicting corrupt policing rather than a sequel to The Wire. It is vivid and richly detailed thanks to gritty direction and especially Jon Bernthal's high-voltage central performance. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/we-own-this-city-review.html) - **The AV Club**, Manuel Betancourt (B+): The miniseries is a gripping heir to The Wire that raises timely questions about policing and reform in America. It dissects systemic issues through its sprawling ensemble and self-aware procedural structure rather than focusing solely on dirty cops. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/we-own-this-city-review-david-simon-baltimore-the-wire-1848826199) - **Empire**, John Nugent (80/100, inferred): The review calls it an intelligently crafted, angry treatise on America’s flawed institutions and a careful chronicler of society, more focused than The Wire. It singles out Jon Bernthal’s riveting physical performance as the charismatic yet terrifying Sgt. Wayne Jenkins. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/we-own-this-city/) - **IndieWire**, Steve Greene (80/100, inferred): The series offers a hypnotic examination of institutional corruption in Baltimore policing through a strong ensemble and focused storytelling. It highlights Jon Bernthal's intense lead performance amid the real events of the Gun Trace Task Force. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/we-own-this-city-review-jon-bernthal-hbo-1234717680/) - **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The critic finds David Simon and George Pelecanos's true-story series a spiritual heir to The Wire, praising its sinewy depiction of Baltimore police corruption and the thrilling, detailed raid scenes. Jon Bernthal's swaggering performance as the corrupt Sgt Wayne Jenkins is singled out as fantastic. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jun/07/we-own-this-city-review-like-the-wire-but-about-real-corrupt-cops-what-a-horror-show) - **The i Paper**, Ed Power (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the series more engaging and less self-important than The Wire, calling it a darkly fascinating study of American institutional decline. Jon Bernthal’s force-of-nature performance as corrupt Sgt. Wayne Jenkins is singled out for praise. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/we-own-this-city-review-david-simon-sky-atlantic-hbo-police-corruption-drama-is-better-than-the-wire-1674657) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (70/100, inferred): The verdict is that it is darned solid though not The Wire, benefiting from proximity to the earlier series while suffering from comparison. Simon, Pelecanos and the cast’s indignation about systemic failures is singled out as consistently earned. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/we-own-this-city-review-1235132429/) - **The Telegraph** (70/100, inferred): The review describes the series as a captivating cop drama resembling a cross between The Wire and The Shield, highlighting the true story of the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force and Jon Bernthal's attention-grabbing performance as the swaggering Wayne Jenkins. It notes the subject is dramatically engaging but limited by the six-episode format. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/city-review-captivating-cop-drama-cross-wire-shield/) - **The Times** (★★★☆☆): The critic sees the series as grim, preachy true-life reportage that feels straitjacketed by real events, contrasting it unfavorably with The Wire after the first episode. Jon Bernthal's charismatic performance as Wayne Jenkins is praised but the overall tone is noted as preachy. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/we-own-this-city-review-g5zv2j5b7) - **Collider**, Maggie Boccella (A-): A gut-wrenching look at timely police corruption and a broken system, with strong ensemble performances led by Bernthal's snake-oil-salesman sergeant and Mosaku's grounded civil rights lawyer. The nonlinear storytelling and focus on choices and consequences make it a compelling, stomach-dropping watch. [Read](https://collider.com/we-own-this-city-review-jon-bernthal-wunmi-mosaku-hbo/) - **NME**, Samuel Moore (80/100, inferred): The series is a gripping, accurate depiction of Baltimore police corruption drawn from Justin Fenton's book, serving as a spiritual successor to The Wire but delivering a shorter, sharper indictment of systemic failures. It excels in its portrayal of the brutal, self-deluding cops and the broader societal rot. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/tv-reviews/we-own-this-city-review-david-simon-the-wire-3242486) - **Paste**, Terry Terrones (8.0/10): A provocative, powerful limited series that captures the corruption scandal with first-rate performances and Wire-like rapid-fire dialogue, though the nonlinear structure can occasionally meander. It compellingly shows how the criminal justice system fails citizens while delivering a strong ensemble drama. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/we-own-this-city/we-own-this-city-review) - **Consequence**, Clint Worthington (75/100, inferred): A comprehensive, methodical account of Baltimore's institutional rot and police corruption that grows riveting in its later episodes, centered on Bernthal's riveting turn as the self-deluded sergeant. The nonlinear narrative and pessimistic view of the system make it a challenging but eye-opening watch. [Read](https://consequence.net/2022/04/we-own-this-city-review-hbo/) - **/Film**, Josh Spiegel (7.5/10): An uncompromising, bleak portrayal of institutional corruption in Baltimore policing, it succeeds as dark, effective drama despite some overambition in juggling timelines and characters. Bernthal delivers a standout, viscerally charismatic performance as the central corrupt cop. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/833862/we-own-this-city-series-review-an-uncompromising-and-grim-look-at-the-modern-american-police/) ## Details - **Created by:** George Pelecanos, David Simon - **Creator:** George Pelecanos, David Simon - **Director:** Reinaldo Marcus Green - **Writer:** David Simon, Ed Burns, George Pelecanos, William F. Zorzi, D. Watkins - **Cinematography:** Yaron Orbach - **Editor:** Joshua Raymond Lee - **Music:** Kris Bowers - **Production design:** Valeria De Felice - **Costume design:** Dona Adrian Gibson - **Producer:** Reena Rexrode, John Mabry - **Cast:** Jon Bernthal as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins; Wunmi Mosaku as Nicole Steele; Jamie Hector as Sean M. Suiter; Josh Charles as Daniel Hersl; McKinley Belcher III as Momodu 'G Money' Gondo; Rob Brown as Maurice Ward; David Corenswet as David McDougall; Darrell Britt-Gibson as Jemell Rayam - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 25 April 2022 - **Genres:** Crime, Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig9BcW7gXvE ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Apple TV: buy, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Wire* (2002): Simon’s first Baltimore series, longer and more patient, with the same city and grievances - *Serpico* (1973): One honest New York officer, and the whole department turns on him - *The Shield* (2002): A fictional strike team stealing from Los Angeles, told with the brakes off - *Line of Duty* (2012): British anti-corruption police in interview rooms, procedural to the point of obsession - *Prince of the City* (1981): Sidney Lumet’s long, cold account of a detective who informs on his colleagues --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/we-own-this-city