I am a huge fan of the movie, so thought about giving this show a shot. I felt the way they tried to mix things up was interesting, but a lot of things really hold this show back. First of all, it's the cast. The Riley Smith who plays Frank Sullivan doesn't seem a good fit in my opinion. And no, I'm not comparing him to Dennis Quaid. Mainly I found it very hard to sympathize with him. The entire time he acted like a junky. And every time he spoke he seemed like he lacked confidence. He did not at all feel convincing to me that he was in law enforcement. That fact alone made it kind of hard for me to feel immersed into the show.
Peyton List playing Raimy Sullivan might be the strongest part of the show, but in a way that might actually be a bad thing because whenever she has scenes with Lenny Jacobson who plays Gordo, it really just exaggerates just how terrible of an actor Lenny Jacobson is. I don't intend to be mean, maybe it's not his fault, but it's pretty painful every time he has any screen time.
And if half of the main duo being completely not convincing wasn't bad enough, I found that the writing seems to be all over the place. Sometimes I find some of the things they do or some of the ways they tried to change up the original story kind of clever (not meaning better than the original, not in the slightest, but clever in that they found a way to deliver the scene without looking like an exact copy of the source), while other times, like in the dialog between the mother and father in the second episode, it seems very contrived.
Now I admit I've only watched the first three episodes, I intend to at least finish the first season, but it seems to be getting worse with each episode rather than better, but I'll still give it a chance. If it improves in the later episodes I will definitely come back to revise this review. But as of right now, I am finding this series very mediocre. And that's not comparing it to the movie, which was excellent. If I compared the two, this would simply be terrible in comparison.
