Netflix’s Black Rabbit - the big city answer to Ozark
Netflix’s “Black Rabbit,” starring Jason Bateman (left) and Jude Law (right) as brothers entangled in a crime thriller, is a gripping and unsettling series that explores their inevitable downfall amidst chaos and addiction. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP
Image: Angela Weiss/AFP
It’s difficult to go wrong with a series led and directed by Jason Bateman, and crime thriller Black Rabbit, which was released on Netflix last week, is no exception.
The show stars Bateman (who directed two of the episodes) as one of the lead roles alongside Jude Law in this intensely riveting and sometimes disturbing tale. The supporting cast of Cleopatra Coleman, Amaka Okafor, Chris Goy, Sope Dirisu, and Forrest Weber all combine for an intriguing watch which explores themes of family, loyalty, addiction and the criminal underworld.
The actors portray brothers; Law plays Jake Friedken, a suave womaniser, big-time businessman who runs an incredibly successful bar/restaurant in New York. His older brother Vince is something of a misfit and struggles to keep his life on the straight and narrow.
The eight-episode min-series Black Rabbit has a distinctly Ozark feel to it especially the intro animations which is clear nod to the latter. Ozark, of course, was the award-winning crime series set, as the title suggests, in the Ozarks— the wild mountainous region of the USA.
Vince’s Chaotic Return to New York in Black Rabbit
In that show, Bateman leads a stellar cast, including Laura Linney, as his character becomes involved with a dangerous drug cartel.
As one would imagine, any movies or series involving cartels, like Breaking Bad, rapidly devolve into chaos and tense encounters. Black Rabbit is no different as it sets the scene with small-time Vince (a long-haired, scruffy-looking version of Bateman) trying to make a quick buck somewhere in the USA when things go wrong quickly.
After he’s robbed trying to sell some antique coins, Vince, clearly struggling with addictions of many kinds, hightails it back to New York to get away after he ran over one of the assailants with his car. He contacts the high-flying Jake and asks for his help in getting to New York quickly.
Jake reluctantly agrees, and we soon find out they’re brothers, as we realise the hold Vince has on his comparatively well-groomed sibling. Once Vince arrives back in New York, we discover why he had to leave in a hurry. On his return, though, the gang that Vince owed money to soon tracks him down and threatens him and demands he pay back a huge sum of money.
A Slow-Burning Series of Brothers’ Inevitable Downfall
From there, things just spiral out of control as the two brothers together always seem one step away from solving their problems. But as though they are a donkey chasing that elusive carrot, they are in a constant state of dilemma.
As we are also given insight into their childhood, we see that Jake and Vince, though they can achieve great things, together they inevitably crash and burn.
As all the characters and incidents are woven together in what is a slow-burning series, it creates a narrative that’s difficult to watch but at the same time is impossible to ignore.
Unlike the phoenix that rises from the ashes, though, it seems the pair were always doomed - by the end of the eight episodes, the brothers learn what was truly important as their world goes up in tatters.