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Bad Monkey: A Motormouthed Vince Vaughn Propels Crime Comedy ‘Ba...

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Published Time: 14.08.2024 - 12:13:09 Modified Time: 14.08.2024 - 12:13:09

“Bad Monkey” was developed by Bill Lawrence, the “Scrubs” creator and recent recipient of a blank check from Tim Cook courtesy of “Ted Lasso,” the computer company’s most successful Hollywood venture by far. Lawrence’s follow-up, “Shrinking,” may have earned a renewal and awards nods, but was to this critic a creative disappointment — more of a tonally muddled “Ted Lasso” rehash than an exciting use of free rein. “Bad Monkey” is not quite a level up in ambition; despite the stacked cast afforded by Apple’s largesse, the show largely takes after Yancy in its smooth, unbothered approach. It is, however, a new register for Lawrence, who brings his sitcom-honed talent for levity (along with “Scrubs” star Zach Braff) to the world of drug smuggling, land theft and insurance fraud. Popular on Variety cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 2, } } }, playerId: 'fdaee7b3-292f-4a85-89bb-29a56b567de3', playlistId: '073c6e70-0010-4b87-92d0-d891f87f5cd8', }).render("connatix_contextual_player_div"); }); Bad Monkey


Florida is forever fertile ground for a chaotic TV crime romp. From “Claws” to “Palm Royale” to “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” the combination of a laissez-faire approach to law and order with tropical scenery has proved an effective setup for storytelling on the small screen. The novelist Carl Hiaasen has long specialized in precisely this milieu, making his 2013 book “Bad Monkey” a natural candidate for adaptation. The result, a 10-episode comedy on Apple TV+, takes the same droll, affectionate attitude toward its colorful characters as Vince Vaughn’s Andrew Yancy, a Keys-based police detective too bemused by his surroundings to get wound up over a messy love life or a floundering career.

“Bad Monkey” was developed by Bill Lawrence, the “Scrubs” creator and recent recipient of a blank check from Tim Cook courtesy of “Ted Lasso,” the computer company’s most successful Hollywood venture by far. Lawrence’s follow-up, “Shrinking,” may have earned a renewal and awards nods, but was to this critic a creative disappointment — more of a tonally muddled “Ted Lasso” rehash than an exciting use of free rein. “Bad Monkey” is not quite a level up in ambition; despite the stacked cast afforded by Apple’s largesse, the show largely takes after Yancy in its smooth, unbothered approach. It is, however, a new register for Lawrence, who brings his sitcom-honed talent for levity (along with “Scrubs” star Zach Braff) to the world of drug smuggling, land theft and insurance fraud.

This being a television show and not a guide to making good decisions, Yancy can’t help complicating things. The protagonist’s defining traits are his inability to shut up or let sleeping dogs lie, so he flirts with medical examiner Rosa (Natalie Martinez) as he pressures her to rule the arm’s origin a likely homicide. Once its owner is identified as a shady man named Nick Stripling, Yancy interrogates Stripling’s wife Eve (Meredith Hagner, as monstrously, deliciously vapid as she was on “Search Party”) on the suspicious terms of her husband’s disappearance. The repeated warnings of Yancy’s partner, Rogelio (John Ortiz), to back off fall on willfully deaf ears.

One smart move “Bad Monkey” makes is to answer our questions quite early. In Lawrence’s telling, “Bad Monkey” is not a whodunit, nor even much of a mystery; a flashback episode revealing how that arm really ended up in the Caribbean, plus Yancy’s own past in the Miami Police Department, arrives before the season’s halfway point. (Suffice it to say Yancy was already on his second chance when vehicular assault put him on even thinner ice.) The structural choice is a welcome reprieve from the tiresome tendency to delay such disclosures until long after the audience has caught on or new information could be usefully incorporated into the plot. Some shows, like Apple peer “Sugar,” make an eleventh-hour twist out of what should be their premise; “Bad Monkey” clears the air to become more of a cat-and-mouse game between Yancy and his targets than 10 hours of our hero fumbling around in the dark.

Vaughn has spent much of his press tour lamenting the demise of the R-rated comedies where he made his name. Despite a poorly received dramatic turn in Season 2 of “True Detective,” he seems to have found a more comfortable berth in TV after a stint on the final stretch of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The actor’s flat-voweled, motormouthed affect doesn’t quite square with the Margaritaville-esque environs of his latest role, but once Yancy gets obsessed, the performance is not unlike Natasha Lyonne’s in “Poker Face”: both maniacally fixated on a goal and believably blasé the risks of the chase.

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