Partner jason butler harner husband2/8/2024 Ozark has very little engagement with the way the Missouri resort economy operates or why it’s such a good (or bad) place to explore the manipulation of wealth in an increasingly deregulated nation. The failure to really flesh out Lake of the Ozarks as a location also gets in the way of what should probably be an examination of the American Dream in 2017. Whether that’s a limitation of actually filming outside of Atlanta or a reflection of characters struggling to feel at home in their new surroundings may depend on your perspective. Lake of the Ozarks is such a unique setting for a show of this type that it’s disappointing how underdeveloped its geography turns out to be. One can certainly admire Bateman’s commitment to Marty’s depression and the consistency of vision according to which most of the other actors are similarly gloomy, but there’s a distinct lack of emotional and visual variation to a show in which everything is shot in dour shades and there’s scarcely any color to be found anywhere. ![]() Ozark isn’t quite Bateman’s Flaked, but Netflix is surely amenable to enabling its Arrested Development stars’ mopier instincts between seasons. In addition to starring, Bateman directed much of the 10-episode first season and he’s pitched both his own performance and the show’s overall tone in a direction that’s more morose and introspective than was necessarily required. Showrunner Chris Mundy worked on AMC’s Low Winter Sun, an adaptation so full of cable-drama stereotypes it was mocked on The Good Wife, so perhaps it was inevitable that as episodes progress, there’s a torture-and-misery-filled nihilism to Ozark so total that it’s hard for any personality to escape. And, despite an antihero prone to fast-talking and sarcasm played by a comedically dexterous leading man, there’s very little humor, even of the pitch-black sort. Agent Petty, for another example, must have the most understanding FBI bosses imaginable, given his glacial progress on an investigation that’s at least three degrees of separation away from being a worthwhile case.Ĭreated by Bill Dubuque, who blended financial services and more aggressive misconduct in last year’s Ben Affleck thriller The Accountant, Ozark has elements of the regional thriller/country noir novels of an Elmore Leonard or Daniel Woodrell, but it has shockingly little fun with any of its genre trappings. ![]() Del, for example, is really anxious to get his money back at certain points and weirdly disinterested at others. Viewers are likely to be less charitable, as long stretches go by in which the writers seem to forget about three or four major characters and longer periods in which characters seem to forget about the complications that were supposed to be giving the show its urgency.
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