Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Assasination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,’ An Examination Of One Of The ‘90s Most Famous Murder Cases

In 2017, Ryan Murphy and FX won all sorts of awards for the first iteration of American Crime Story, involving the O.J. Simpson case. But what happens when he turns the show towards a case where the murder itself — and its victim — was world-famous, but not as much is known about the investigation into the killer? Read on to find out if Murphy can keep the magic going…

THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “July 15, 1997, Miami Beach, Florida,” says the location card. We see a painting of a blue sky with puffy clouds that spins and pans down to a middle-aged man staring up from his bed. He walks through his lavish bedroom suite, puts on a robe, and stands out on a balcony to look at the beach, where we find a young man sitting in the sand, plaintively looking out into the ocean.

The Gist: The middle-aged man is famed fashion designer Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez), looking out the window of his sprawling Miami Beach Villa. The young man on the beach is Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), who takes out a book called “The Man Who Was Vogue,” about Conde Nast. Little does either man know that they’re going to meet up in a short while and be a part of one of the most famous murders of the 1990s.

We all know about the Gianni Versace murder case. After running some errands around his Miami Beach neighborhood, Versace is gunned down on the steps of his villa. A massive manhunt ensues, involving both the Miami-Dade County police and the FBI. The cops, represented by Detectives Weider (Dascha Polanco) and Scrimshaw (Will Chase), pursue a line of questioning that involves Versace’s very open sex life, starting with his longtime boyfriend Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin).

The feds, led by Agent Evans (Jay R. Ferguson), are convinced it’s Cunanan; he’s on the Most Wanted list because he’s suspected in four other killings, three of which are were gay men. In the meantime, Cunanan manages to escape police pursuit, and is fully satisfied with himself that he scored such a big kill.

We also see a flashback to 1990 San Francisco, where we see Cunanan lie through his teeth to his friend Elizabeth (Annaleigh Ashford) and others about a meeting he had with Versace at a club. We see the meeting and the supposed budding romance between the two, but aren’t sure whether it’s true or just a figment of Cunanan’s imagination.

After the killing, Versace’s sister — and muse — Donatella (Penélope Cruz ) arrives to make sure her brother’s company continues to run as a family company (Gianni had a plan to take it public), as well as rip into Antonio for not being there when her brother needed him. She immediately puts out a statement distancing themselves from Cunanan.

Our Take: It would seem to be a bit pointless to compare The Assasination of Gianni Versace to Ryan Murphy’s first American Crime Story season about the O.J. Simpson case. That involved many more players than this one, and mostly involved the trial. This one will likely be more about the investigation and how Cunanan escaped law enforcement because the cops were hung up on Versace’s sex life, and the feds had trouble dealing with crimes involving gay men.

That’s a great pivot on Murphy’s part. The People V. O.J. Simpson was a triumph, and to repeat the formula with a similarly-structured case wouldn’t make much sense. And an examination of how attitudes towards the LGBTQ community have evolved over 20 short years feels very of-the-moment. Remember, 1997 was the same year Ellen DeGeneres came out and ended up losing her sitcom as a result, so while it seems shocking now that attitudes towards the community were so backwards only 3 years before the millennium, Murphy wants to point out that, yes, things were just that bad not that long ago.

While Cruz does a good job with the quirky, tough Donatella Versace, and Ramírez seems to be channeling Gianni Versace in looks and mannerisms, Criss is the revelation as Cunanan. Remember, most people know him as Chris Colfer’s on-again-off-again from Glee; here, though, we see the layered sociopath that Cunanan really was, switching back and forth from worshiping Versace when they meet to being dismissive of him to his friends. He plays Cunanan’s pathological lying with such enthusiasm that you start to wonder about Criss himself.

There’s the usual Murphy visual flourishes, like cameras following behind characters as they walk around, lots of stylistic shots like the opening shot, and more. But with the focus of the anthology format, he’s proven that he can tell the story without going into the excesses he somestimes gets into during his regular series efforts. It’s what we look forward to seeing here.

Sex and Skin: Nothing yet.

Parting Shot: Cunanan, dressed all in peach-colored clothes, walks along the beach, completely satisfied that he got away with it. He goes to a newsstand and buys copies of every paper that has the murder on its front page and smiles a sick smile.

Sleeper Star: There’s visible pain on Martin’s face as Antonio talks to Det. Scrimshaw about how his relationship with Versace was more than just fetching lovers for him. We’re looking forward to seeing more from the music superstar. Also, always fun to see Polanco out of orange prison scrubs, and it seems like she’ll have a meaty role to play as one of the detectives.

Most Pilot-y Line: A chubby tourist who is at the murder scene crosses the police tape and picks up some blood with a Versace ad in ther magazine. Even if it really happened, it still feels like pure Murphy excess.

Our Call: Stream It. We don’t know if it’ll be as good as The People V. O.J. Simpson, but the examination of how Cunanan was able to go on his killing spree because of law enforcement’s bias against gays will be interesting to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch ACS: Versace on FXNow