It’s a riveting and devastating ride, anchored by some of the most mercurial performances you’ll see on TV this year. Tumbling into the Friedkins’ shadowy burrow can be harrowing at times, but it’s a fall worth taking when you have Vince and Jake waiting at the bottom.

The series is eminently watchable, at times even addictive. This is largely due to the chemistry of Jason Bateman, who channels his smarm into Vince’s consummate dirtbag, and Jude Law, who fills Jake with a puffed-up swagger that can’t keep the hell hounds off his trail.

We get the feeling that Black Rabbit is going to be problematic and overstuffed as the series moves along, but Law and Bateman are so compelling as Jake and Vince, we’ll keep watching, just to see how far Vince pushes his brother’s goodwill.

It’s too busy, trying to do too much, and loses the sharp focus it needs to bring us along for what is almost – but not quite – a great ride.

Netflix’s gripping yet exasperating and criminally overlong eight-part thriller.

This is a promising, if familiar, dynamic for Black Rabbit, created by King Richard screenwriter Zach Baylin, along with Kate Susman. But it rarely plays out in a compelling fashion, because neither brother comes across quite like the show wants them to.

"Rabbit," about a pair of brothers − one a perennial failure and the other a slick success − comes off as a dull, literally dark slog into a poorly explicated criminal underworld.