Review: HBO's 'The Sunset Limited' features two great American actors, playwright

By April MacIntyre Feb 13, 2011, 1:24 GMT

HBO's "Sunset Limited" airs tonight, and it truly is a no-miss streamlined look at the nature of belief, the illusions of happiness and the void of nothingness.

It has spareness in the production, the precision of the words, thanks to playwright Cormac McCarthy's prose, and not an easy watch; it demands all your attention and thought.

Two of our best, Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, are paired in unusual circumstance and through probing conversation; the two men lay out their concerns, beliefs and doubts, each contemplating the other's stance, and if their own ideas perhaps need revision, or not.

McCarthy's play takes the notions of spiritualism and condenses these powerful feelings into intellectual banter amidst crisis counseling, of sorts.  Tommy Lee Jones' character 'White" has tried to kill himself, and Samuel L. Jackson's character "Black" has "saved" him, and given him pause for thought.

This is not trivial TV, but quality, and something intellectual to savor as we watch two men at the top of their craft, Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, volley their most laser-focused arguments for the sale of the debate: God versus science, natural order versus the mysteries of faith.

The play's heart is eloquently condensed in McCarthy's line for "Black":

"That there he was standin there. And I can look at him and I can say: Well he don't look like my brother.  But there he is. Maybe I better look again."

That line is telling for so many reasons, but mostly how we all need to treat each other's ideas and notions with more respect. Civility is eroded; we are coarser and meaner than ever before in communicating. McCarthy's play makes us consider the opposition, the ideas that run counter to our fixed notions, and helps us to become better listeners, more tolerant of each other in this short blip of life.

These two men - Black and White - are as diverse as their character names imply: Jones' White is a professor, Jackson's Black is a murderer who has served his time.

Black saves White, literally, and then proceeds to reason some hope, perhaps a desire to find life worth the effort. The promise of eternal life is an anathema to White.

"Perhaps I want forgiveness, but there is no one to ask of it, says White. "And there is no going back. No setting things right. Perhaps once. Not now. Now there is only the hope of nothingness.  I cling to that hope. Now open the door, please."