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Under the Banner of Heaven (2022)

2022 · Crime,Drama,Mystery · dramatized-true-crime, crime-psychological-profiler, historical-period

Under the Banner of Heaven poster

Under the Banner of Heaven is a US prestige limited series dramatizing the real 1984 Lafferty murders in Utah, using a fictionalized Mormon detective (Andrew Garfield, in a career-best performance) as the audience surrogate whose deepening crisis of faith mirrors the radicalization of the killers. The show's structural conceit — weaving the present-day investigation with dramatized LDS historical flashbacks — turns a true-crime procedural into an intellectual excavation of religious fundamentalism, patriarchal violence, and institutional belief. The tone is slow-burning, morally serious, and dense with theological texture; it rewards patience and curiosity more than thriller instinct. The ensemble cast is uniformly strong, the Utah setting is atmospherically rendered, and the show functions as both a crime drama and a genuinely challenging meditation on how faith can be weaponized.

From the reviewers

Andrew Garfield embodies the role very deeply and the viewer gets the impression that he is torn apart and thoroughly tested in his faith. Garfield's role is a first rate acting assignment.
Garfield does an amazing job showing the progression of his faith crisis.
he was totally believable as a complex, conflicted Mormon detective.
Daisy Edgar-Jones was another strong performer among an almost flawless cast as an enigmatic woman trying to combine her faith and her ambition in a world that has stood still but now is trying to propel backwards. A progressive woman is not welcome or valued.
Interweaving re-enactments of stories from the Book of Mormon related to a double homicide in Utah, the detective-a Mormon himself-finds himself going through a trial of faith similar to the primary suspect

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