Are there too many red herrings in the 'Perry Mason' reboot?

Perry Mason has had an enviably long life as a character in US popular culture since being introduced to the world in the novels of Erle Stanley Gardner in the 1930s. A criminal defence lawyer with a knack for proving the innocence of his clients by implicating the real culprits, Mason went on to feature first as the star of a popular radio drama and then in the 1950s as a television stalwart, in one of the US's longest-running TV dramas.

The titular character was played by Raymond Burr in the show, and then in a short-lived 1970s reboot and a series of 30 television films that he starred in before his death in 1993.

Mason was presented as a stand-up citizen with a clear sense of justice and a cunning legal ability to outfox those who thought they'd gotten away with their crimes. He belonged to a solid post-World War 2 tradition of honourable men.

Now, with the US in the grip of alt-right lunacy, racial rage and fake news, creators Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones have resuscitated a much grittier, morally murky incarnation of Mason for a greyer era.

Their eight-episode HBO version treads firmly in the existential angst and masculine identity crises of the film noir genre, gloriously realised in the show's sets, costumes, gory bodies, sexual tension and grimy palette.

Mason is played by Matthew Rhys as a private investigator rather than a lawyer, battling to be as good a man as circumstances will allow.

When a young couple's infant is murdered after a kidnapping gone awry, Mason is enlisted by defence attorney "EB" Jonathan (John Lithgow) to help prepare a defence for the child's mother, Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin), who is accused of conspiring in the plot.

Mason begins a descent into the corrupt alleyways of LA society that will see him lock horns with a popular charismatic preacher, Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany), and her backroom-plotting sister Birdy (Lili Taylor). He's assisted by Shea Whigham, who plays his beleaguered but loyal aid Pete Strickland as they try to help EB best the smug state prosecutor Maynard Barnes (Stephen Root).

There is an attempt to focus the reboot on bigger issues, like corruption and race, but there's also a disappointing lack of focus on the nuts and bolts of the story. Mason ultimately knows what's really going on, but the audience can't piece things together as capably as the investigator eventually does.

On one level that's in keeping with many film noir classics, where red herrings and dead ends abound, but in this particular instance there are too many of these to justify the many head scratches audiences will no doubt experience.

There are also too many hard-boiled stereotypes who aren't given the psychological depth of Mason - dirty cops, scheming femmes fatales, greedy preachers, each realised in shadowy visual perfection but most without much to remember beyond that.

But there is still something gloriously trashy and firmly in the spirit of Gardner's original pulpy novels that's hard not to enjoy. It's held together by some excellent performances and superb styling that places it firmly within the tradition of neo-noir classics like Chinatown and LA Confidential. Like those noir reboots, this Perry Mason presents just enough knowing rear glances on that era, but with the eyes of the present to lift the show beyond the easy black-and-white moral approach of its forebears.

It's a welcome and enjoyable return to the screen of a beloved veteran of popular culture who's a little more damaged than he used to be but hasn't lost his nose for looking under the rocks others step over.

• 'Perry Mason' is available on Showmax with new episodes added weekly.