Bateman heads for the hills in ‘Ozark’
If you liked ‘Breaking Bad,’ this may be the show for you
An average Joe NEW YORK adopts an illegal side-hustle to pay the bills, and draws the ire of a Mexican drug cartel.
That may sound a lot like AMC’s Breaking Bad, but it’s also an apt description of new Netflix drama Ozark (streaming Friday), which stars Jason Bateman as a money-laundering everyman who becomes the target of a ruthless kingpin (Esai Morales) when his business partner (Josh Randall) steals millions. Bateman understands why many critics are drawing parallels between his character, Marty Byrde, and
Bad’s cancer-stricken, methcooking Walter White.
“There’s certainly a lot of elements that one could say are similar,” he says. “I’m really glad I’m not hearing a terrible show that we’re compared to. But I think there are a few other shows we’re certainly inspired by, and who knows, if we’re given another (season), what the show will morph into.”
Among the differences: Bad was set in New Mexico, while
Ozark takes place in rural Missouri, where Marty abruptly relocates his wife (Laura Linney) and two kids (Sofia Hublitz and Skylar Gaertner) from Chicago to recoup his cartel debt on the cash-rich tourist haven Lake of the Ozarks. He poses as an investor and descends on small businesses through which he can filter cash. But he faces resistance from dubious locals and a crafty redneck clan, led by the callous Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner). Bateman, 48, is known for the
Horrible Bosses movies and zany sitcom Arrested Development, but he’s warmed to behind-thescenes roles, directing films Bad
Words and The Family Fang. After reading The Accountant screenwriter Bill Dubuque’s first two scripts for Ozark, he agreed to star, executive-produce and direct four of the season’s 10 episodes, including the first.
He was intrigued by Marty, a smart but supercilious anti-hero, “because he probably thinks what he’s done is not that bad, but only in relation to what (his partner) has done,” Bateman says. “He’s smart enough to create these mental safe harbors for himself and justify these weird decisions.”
Linney, 53, whose last TV series role was a cancer patient in Showtime’s The Big C, relished the opportunity to play the similarly messy Wendy, who is revealed in the first episode to have cheated on Marty. Although they swear to stay together for their children, she eventually becomes entangled in his shady dealings.
“She could be labeled just a total witch, and she’s not,” Linney says. “As the show progresses, more is revealed about all of them, the core of who these people really are and how they function. With Wendy, you see what sides of that she embraces and the sides she tries to submerge.”
Asked where they’d go if they were trying to fall off the map, the
Ozark duo says it would depend how much money’s at stake and who they’re hiding from.
“There’s a primal thing that makes people flee that I don’t think has anything to do with wishes or desires,” Linney says. “It’s just instinct and survival. I don’t think anybody knows how they would be until they’re there.”
There’s something very familiar about Ozark. A white, middle-class anti-hero gets involved in organized crime and does terrible things for his family, who in turn do their own terrible things. There’s graphic violence and a strip club, and the whole series seems to be shot through a blueand-gray filter.
The Netflix thriller (streaming Friday, of four) draws comparisons with other crime dramas starring family-focused anti-heroes, like Breaking Bad or
The Sopranos: Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a bored, disinterested Chicago financial adviser with a seemingly perfect family and a sensible Camry. He also happens to be a money launderer for a powerful drug cartel.
When a cartel leader murders Marty’s partners after they skim money, Marty makes a lastchance play for his life by suggesting he move the business down to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where he says he can wash more money in an untapped market.
It takes a long time for Ozark to set up its premise; so much so that the pilot makes it feel like the entire story would have been better suited as a film about Marty and his wife, Wendy (Laura Linney), on the run.
The series reveals its true focus in the third episode, as it broadens from the family to the greater criminal enterprise in the Ozarks and the law enforcement agents who track them.
While there’s a lot to like in the cast and some of the plot, one of the major problems with the series, created by Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams ( The Accountant), is that episodes feel too long at 60 minutes. It’s easy to find places where smart editing could have added momentum and urgency. For a series in which the lead characters are fleeing certain death, it often feels a little lackadaisical and bloated.
Bateman plays Marty with a glazed disinterest, and he’s not nearly the most interesting character in the show. (He does, however, contribute to its atmosphere by directing the first two episodes.) Wendy is a more surprising and self-assured figure, and displays Linney’s acting skills. The housewife puts on her own cheery performance for a questioning FBI agent and family friends, but she has a cold fury that comes out when she’s threatened.
Ozark also benefits from Ruth (Julia Garner), a young aspiring criminal who is both a potential threat and ally to Marty. Garner, too, has a striking confidence, and it’s easy to see how a petite teen could intimidate men who loom over her physically but are beneath her in intelligence.
And beneath its hazy Missouri surface, there are intriguing elements to Ozark. When the series looks past Marty’s story, it finds something worth coming back for.