The Last Panthers

It would be impossible to deliver something as bleak, unsettling, and compelling as [David Bowie's] “Blackstar” has posthumously become, but more often than not, when it counts, The Last Panthers delivers.

[A] gripping, smartly written, dark and beautifully directed new French series.

With so much talent at hand, from the performances to the direction to the editing, The Last Panthers ends up making the familiar feel fresh, allowing the equally thrilling and melancholic subject matter to unfurl with surprising effectiveness.

It may require concentration to savor all its moving parts. But that’s not exactly work, considering the reward.

The series can be pretty dark, but it’s worth investigating.

Like last year’s Netflix original series Bloodline, The Last Panthers requires a bit of patience before it can catch fire--yet when it does, the flames are downright inextinguishable.

There are few grace notes and no real surprises beneath the pumped-up topical melodrama. The Last Panthers's aesthetic is as numbingly generic as most of its characters, favoring that ashtray-gray sheen that many filmmakers prefer when staging European crime stories.