schatel

Well this was a massive disappointment... Given the cast and the glowing reviews I was very much looking forward to this. As others have pointed out, for a supposedly serious drama, a lot of the plot was ridiculous, to the speed of the initial police response, to their complete cluelessness of modern emojies, to the school yard chase. The standard of acting was great, but the material just felt melodramatic for the sake of it and while the one shot cinematography was initially impressive it soon became jarring. This basically felt like a high budget lifestyle channel movie, with the added negative that it suffers from poor pacing and structure.

Well, let's start with the positives... A fine cast, a pleasantly short 6 episodes, so it doesn't drag too much (weirdly it manages to nonetheless at times), and a kernel of a fascinating plot. Sadly it fails on several levels; it feels like a 16 year old with a modicum of understanding of politics, power and technology decided to write a soap opera and occasionally had a helping hand from his more well informed uncle...I am sure this cost a fair bit of coin, so I hope it does well and encourages Netflix to greenlight similar endeavors as, despite its failings, it was largely gripping and had high production values.