Screen time
Marty Byrde is a husband and father of two thankless offspring in one seemingly vanilla life. He works as a fifinancial adviser in a Chicago
partnership with a flashier cohort but arrives with ‘bad guy’ signposted through the seams of his slighty too tight, slightly too shiny suit pegs. Marty watches amateur porn while wooing clients and argues with his daughter over tea. Within minutes it’s revealed that he’s accidentally involved in a money-laundering scheme, the finer details of which are mumbled, sotto voce by a member of a Mexican cartel who looks like he’s stepped out of an ’80s aftershave billboard. Herein lies the problem with Ozark. Billed as the new
Breaking Bad, you’d struggle to put it on a par with Bloodline or Billions. The cast is way too pristine and pretty, their characters all generically underdeveloped. Shootings, body disposals and other hefty plot devices are thrown at the drama speedily and gratuitously, before you can remember characters’ names. There’s a lot of sterling talent involved. Jason Bateman stars and directs. Laura Linney takes a surprising sleepwalk through the role of his wife. But you know a story is yearning for some light and shade when its cheeriest aspect is the closing long-shot, accompanied by a particularly whiny Radiohead song.
WITH PAUL FLYNN