MovieChat Forums > Ozark (2017) Discussion > Just brilliant - Ozark review

Just brilliant - Ozark review

posted 7 years ago by SySnootles (100)
3 replies | jump to latest

You might think that a series about a financial advisor who launders money for a Mexican drug cartel would be somewhat boring... completely the opposite. Bateman is fantastic throughout this, a man who consistently fights for his life, family and sanity, somehow managing to keep it together. I think sometimes it skeeters on the edge of being slightly unbelievable, but you get so caught up with the next conundrum and the exploits of his family whilst they each come up with innovative ways of mentally surviving their new life in the Ozarks, that you eventually stop asking 'but why? WHY?' and go with it.

Circling like sharks round the edge are the FBI, the cops, a family of rednecks, the local drugpin, a dying old man who lives in their basement, a preacher, and of course the Mexicans, all of them swooping in occasionally to stir things up and take a bite. The supporting cast are good, but this vehicle belongs to Bateman, Linney and the actors who play their children, as well as an incredible Julia Garner who plays Ruth, a sassy young woman in a family of deadbeats, who has to make some incredibly hard emotional choices. Harris Yulin - and I'm going to on record and say this man has an INCREDIBLE butt for an octegenarian (and yes, you see it a lot) - is also fantastic as their dying lodger with a knife-sharp edge and to-be-discovered dodgy past.

This is not full of action pieces. Sometimes there is a slow build to something that you didn't see coming that will slam into you like a freight train and make you catch your breath (scene in the finale in the lake -eeek!). There is a flashback episode which I think was filler and unnecessary in the scheme of things. There are little twists and turns and snippets of whip-smart dialogue. If you're looking for something clever and engaging and have the time to kill this is really worth a watch.

[–] Sentient Meat (1509) 7 years ago

It's like Justified blended with Breaking Bad...thoroughly entertaining but not without its flaws. (Huge plot holes that require Golden Gate bridge size suspension of disbelief)

But I enjoyed it, and will watch it next season.

[–] MME (4) 7 years ago

I agree Bateman is very good, as is Laura Linney. But I have some problems with this series, minor but irritating. One is there is no one to like! Not a single character is admirable, or root for-able, not even the kids. Marty is a little like Walter White; he starts out a good but flawed man who gradually begins to "break bad" but he's not as tragic, or therefore, as sympathetic as Walt.

Another is that some characters are inconsistent. We have a foul mouthed, cynical, 15 year old who suddenly acts like a naïve 11 year old, sobbing inconsolably because she apparently believed a vacationing rich guy would "take her away from all this." And then there's Ruth, a Missouri redneck, who talks like Marty...and uses the same logic. Smart she may be, but that was taking her character too far. And the very Scottish Peter Mullan, who I've liked in everything he's done and who does a good American accent, apparently thinks Missourians sound like people from the south.

The writing is the problem, I think, certainly not the acting, which is uniformly good. Production values are also excellent. Too many series are overwrought these days; producers apparently think they have to ramp everything up--drama, conflict, and especially violence-- in order to keep viewers' attention. Having said that, I admit to a certain satisfaction in the way the psychopathic Darlene expressed her displeasure at name calling.

I hope there's a second season, because, even with Ozark's faults, it has characters worth investing in.

[–] brux (14724) 7 years ago

unbelievable? you think? ;-)

I just found it and have watched about half of it in a day. I kind of like it, or at least I am amused and entertained by it.

I find Bateman using all his same mannerisms and styles from everything else he has ever done.

I wonder whatever happened to his sister Justine Bateman.