A Man in Full

The dialogue bristles and the acting is top-notch. If it keeps this level up for the next five episodes, it will be essential viewing.

A thin and reductive take on the famed author’s sprawling saga of Southern America, it nonetheless struts about with swaggering ferocity, led by Jeff Daniels’ full-bodied performance as a blustery, bloviating capitalist predator.

A Man In Full feels half-baked. All the elements are there. It’s well-shot, acted, and directed. No expense was spared. But it lacks punch. Spice. To use a word Croker loves: vigor.

The show ends up far less than the sum of its parts, an oddly generic and muted take on a larger-than-life American story.

But apart from Charlie, through whom each story thread passes, most other characters don’t have enough, or good enough material to seem quite real, and many are just unpleasant. An unlikable character without an inner life is merely unlikable — and uninteresting.

"Man" fails to achieve the scope or satire that made "Succession" so successful. There's a watchable quality you can find in any of Kelley's series. But the sheen wears off quickly.

The individual elements of the story aren’t really the problem with A Man in Full. Instead, it’s the challenge of translating Wolfe’s singular style of prose — vivid, elaborate, effusive, ornamental — which thrives on the page but can devolve into cartoonish farce on screen.

Overall - it's 'OK'. Nice acting efforts and the plot would be potentially interesting but it's badly inhibited by some very sluggish writing. Aspects of it are produced almost as if it isn't taking itself seriously and that means many of the characters just aren't very interesting. Summary - "fair but could do much better with a little more effort".

Jeff Daniels plays an arrogant, headstrong Atlanta real estate mogul who finds himself in a bankruptcy battle with his bank. In a subplot, his secretary's husband is jailed for assaulting a police officer. These 2 plots play out simultaneously to add to the soap opera elements. Famed TV writer David E. Kelley has penned the series, so you can expect drama, but this is really about Daniels' character and his conflicts with one of the finance officers (Tom Pelphrey). They both turn in over-the-top performances with Daniels handily winning most intolerable. Even with him trying so hard, the series never ignites any intensity. It just rolls along with continuous mildly angry encounters. This is the kind of bland logarithmic stuff that streamers continually thrust upon viewers. Not bad but not great. (6 one-hour eps)

We turned it off before the end of episode one. I’m so very tired of stereotypes and caricatures. Daniels was fine. The acting overall was fine, but the writing was disappointing.

The show had a decent plot and production quality, but the acting was unbelievable at times and the story made unrealistic connections and jumped ahead a couple of times. I was not sure if this was a drama or a comedy, especially after watching the ending scene.