Un homme, un vrai

I read the novel when it came out in the mid '90s and enjoyed it very much. This series took a 700something page book and tried to shoehorn it into six 45minute episodes. The result seems disjointed and basically just incomplete. The first episode opens as if it assumes no character development is needed; that all of the viewers are already aqcuainted with the players and how they came to be who we now see. The novel has several sub-plots that intertwine well throughout, but this Netflix series offers us only two which really seem to have little connection with the other, other than some characters moving back and forth between them. My take is the series was budgeted much to small to spend the time and money to do Tom Wolfe's novel the justice it deserves.

I have always been a Jeff Daniels fan, but I also looked at him as a middle-of-the-road actor who could do lots of things well but nothing outstanding. The Purple Rose of Cairo, Fly Away Home, Pleasantville, Terms of Endearment, and of course Dumb and Dumber all are some of my favorite movies he was in.

But here in this six-part miniseries, set in Atlanta, he is the central character and the whole project depends on how well he channels Charlie Croker, and he does it admirably, and with both lots of menace and lots of humor.

Charlie, just turning 60, is a former Georgia Tech football star. He has developed himself into a big businessman who never shies away from debt. As this story starts he owes one bank $800 Million, and several smaller ones a few hundred million additional. Along the way he has made a few friends but also a few enemies and now some want to take him down, foreclose on his assets, see him bankrupt.

But if Charlie is nothing else, he is a fighter. The whole series is mostly about his enemies trying to get the best of him while Charlie fends off the attacks.

This is definitely an adult show, lots and lots of cursing and at least a couple of very graphic simulated sex scenes, but overlaid on all that is a very funny and entertaining presentation.

My wife and I watched it, streaming, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

BTW, if anyone still doesn't know, Jeff Daniels is a talented guitarist, song writer, and singer. For a good example do a web search on the four words "jeff daniels kelly clarkson", watch the video and you might be amazed.

This is... not that good to be honest. The script is uneven and pretty flat, and if you've seen enough films in your day you will be able to predict a lot of what is going to happen.

Some events are pretty interesting, especially when the story ventures into the absurd, like the coupling of horses scenes or the infamous scene in the last episode, but other than that this feels pretty procedural.

The only thing that really hooked me was the prison storyline, that felt genuine and interesting all the way, and I always enjoy seeing Anthony Heald as well.

Jeff Daniels carries this show on his shoulders and he does his best, dominating the scenes he is in with his enormous presence and charisma. But it is clear for all to see that he is severely limited in his performance when the script is not up to it.

Once again we have a case of 'the book is better than the film/miniseries'.

I've read the book twice, and believe me, the book is better than this 6 episodes series.

My biggest critique about the mini series is that the dialogues are really poor, and of little substance. And thus not believable. Short scenes with few information are put behind each other. This also means that we don't get much to know about the main protagonists, nor about how Charlie Croker ended up in such financial perils.

It is strange to see that a man so affluent as Charlie Croker has not many staff members (1 attorney, 1 secretary and 1 accountant). It is strange to see when he shows up at decisive meetings he doesn't have a lot to say, but huff and bluff and puff. Same goes for the bank accountants too actually. Their case is not well built up. These business scenes don't come across as very believable. It all feels a bit grotesque, cartoonesque... The best episode is the last episode, in which there is a long court scene in which the attorney brings a strong plea for justice, and later a memorable speech of Charlie in Georgia Tech Stadium. There should have been more scenes like this. Maybe my expectiations were a bit too high, but I was a bit dissapointed all in all.

It was interesting to note the script for this new limited series was written by David E. Kelley, the guy responsible or who'd participated in so many series over the years. A lot were vanilla but all very watchable.

This one was very watchable, and thankfully no messing around with incremental releasing of episodes, so we're able to binge the whole thing now if we wish. My style for sure.

It's not as representative of the "underbelly" of political goings on in Atlanta as I'd had hoped, or America for that matter. It sort of forgot about itself on the way and ended up too vanilla. And it then has an ending. Which is good. Most series don't.

Most importantly, I did appreciate some of the unmistakable nods to the current political situation in the USA in very small ways which hit the mark and made me smile each time. When you watch, or if you've seen it, you'll know what I mean. Funny. I hope there's more of this type of thing coming on films soon. We need more humour.