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A Man in Full

A Man in Full

A star-studded cast and a timely premise can’t save this stilted, badly directed business drama set in the South

5.0

TV Show

United States of America
English
Drama
2024
Aml Ameen, Chanté Adams, Diane Lane

TLDR

Forget his knee, Jeff Daniels must be really sore carrying this entire series on his back.

What it's about

Based on a novel by Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full follows the different but interconnected lives of people in Georgia, all of whom have ties to the megacorp Croker Industries.

The take

On paper, A Man in Full looks like it could be the next Succession or, at the very least, Yellowstone. It gives us a look into Atlanta’s ultra-wealthy, primarily through the eyes of the tycoon Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels). The show is headlined by stars like Diane Lane and Lucy Liu, helmed by acclaimed director Regina King (One Night in Miami), and based on a novel by bestselling author Tom Wolfe. So, by all accounts, A Man in Full should work. But it doesn’t. The show is hard to watch, not because it forces us to confront relevant truths, but simply because it’s badly made. Apart from the mentioned actors, everyone else is weirdly stiff and wooden, as if cast in a network show they know is doomed to fail. The writing is heavy-handed and lacks the humor and intelligence to match the show’s ambitious story. And the editing doesn’t do the show any favors—in a vital scene involving snakes and sex, the two separate shots were so clumsily intercut that instead of feeling thrilled, you just end up laughing at what just happened. Perhaps it gets better by the end, but you’ll need a lot of patience to get past just the first episode.

What stands out

As I said, the mentioned actors are the saving grace of the show. Daniels, in particular, looks like he’s having a lot of fun playing a Trump stand-in, so there’s that to look forward to at least.

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