STATE OF CHAOS
Limited fun in the sun in rambling new Netflix series ‘Florida Man’
‘FLORIDA MAN” memes have become infamous cultural touchstones — and now they’ve been adapted as a Netflix series with a star-studded cast.
“Florida Man,” created by Donald Todd (“This Is Us”) and executive-produced by Jason Bateman, follows Mike Valentine (Emmy nominee Edgar Ramirez), an excop from Florida whose life is in shambles. He’s a gambling addict with a failed marriage and is currently under the thumb of inept Pittsburgh gangster Moss Yankov (Emory Cohen, “The
OA”).
When Moss sends Mike to Florida to retrieve his runaway girlfriend, Delly (Abbey Lee), it sets of a chain of events that take Mike’s life — and the show itself — spiraling into off-the-wall directions mixing noir, mystery and dark comedy.
The series is, ultimately, too chaotic and scattered for its own good — but is not without some shaggy charm.
It turns out that Mike was having an affair with Delly, which Moss doesn’t know about. He’s also reluctant to return to Florida, in part because he’s got a complicated relationship with his retired cop dad, Sonny (Anthony LaPaglia) and always wanted to escape his hometown. Outside of Mike’s adventures, there’s also an often-comedic subplot about Sheriff Ketcher (Clark Gregg), a mysterious, gunobsessed family man.
There are several subplots that fit “Florida Man” memes that include news reports that have “Florida Men” engaging in absurd crimes spurring real-life headlines: “Naked Florida man leads cops on chase in stolen school bus” or “Florida man punches bobcat to save daughter’s dog.”
On the show, this manifests in situations including an incident where Mike tries to save a woman from drowning on a beach — only to get be accused of assaulting her. On top of this indignity, he then get his unmentionables bitten by a shark … and the incident goes viral on social media.
There’s also a plotline involving a dismembered dead man found in a storm drain.
In theory, it’s a good idea to make a show around these notorious “Florida Man” headlines that have become ubiquitous punchlines. But the series never quite gels into anything coherent, nor does it get quite outlandish enough to justify naming itself after those infamous memes.
The visuals are appropriately seedy — candy-colored neon flickering nightclub signs, motel rooms, beachside dive bars — but while the actors all deliver engaging performances, and their characters are often fun, we don’t know enough about them to feel invested in what’s happening. Is Mike an antihero a la Walter White? Is he a man we’re supposed to sympathize with and root for? Or is he a guy we’re supposed to laugh at and judge without liking – similar to the “Succession characters?” Despite Ramirez’s valiant attempts to give Mike depth, it doesn’t feel like “Florida Man” has figured it out. It’s a bloated mess with too many character and plotlines and an inconsistent tone that diverges from one scene to the next.
The series plays like a rough draft of a show that could have been good … if the script had been put through a few more rounds of polishing and sharpening.