The Madness

Coleman Domingo is becoming my favorite actor. He really can make reading the phone book a compelling story. And that's just about as compelling as The Madness right now. The dialogue is almost embarrassingly bad. They try very hard to be punchy and snappy but it comes across as very predictable and corny.

From the beginning, there's much about the story that just defies the most basic commonsense. I constantly find myself asking 'why why why?!' So much so that after episode 2, I skipped episode 7 just to see what happens at the end. I have little doubt that there's little more than lots of overwrought storytelling and superfluous dialogue in the episodes I skipped.

When I started watching this, I was quite impressed. The first episode was really intriguing and exciting. I love crime-dramas, so I was looking forward to binging this series.

The acting is excellent, throughout and hats off to the cast for making this at all watchable. They do brilliantly with a very poor script. I just found the dialogue really cringy and some of the decisions made by the main characters were just not believable. The storyline overall is interesting but a bit of a mess to be honest. I think it has some good elements in it, reflecting the issues there are with racism, right-wing groups etc but I felt that it was trying to sit on the fence about where the blame lies.

That said, I felt empathy for the family throughout and that is all down to the acting. I hope to see the cast in something more worthy of them in the future.

After watching 4 episodes, the first thought I had was- that could easily have been done in 2! And therein likes the problem. It's not the acting, the actors or the plot. It's just that somebody decided to drag this across 8 episodes.

This means that the plot is needlessly stretched, the story meanders and sometimes you feel like just fast forwarding 10 mins so that they get to the point.

As far the people rating this 3 stars, it's really not that bad. Netflix really needs to start undertaking understanding that people won't get dragged by shows that are stretched just to keep one on the platform. And that's all this is- an effort to keep you on 8 hours!

Just started watching and it's a 6-8 possibly. Just wanted to get on here and direct attention to how weird these reviews are. Either 10s or 5 and below. It feels like people either love it or hate it with no in-between. Personally, I think it's solid so far, but not mind-blowing. Some aspects are really engaging, while others are a bit predictable or drag at times. The acting is decent, and the pacing is alright, though it could use more depth in some areas. Overall, I wouldn't rate it a perfect 10, but it definitely deserves more nuance than what I've been seeing in these reviews. It's a watchable show with potential that might get better as it goes. Hopefully, as it progresses, it finds a better balance.

Boy I wanted to like this. Have liked other things Colman has done, but this is a waste of time. Some really questionable and predictable script choices and, sorry to say, not great acting across the board. And poor Colman is just miscast here. He's not this kinda lead. Reminded me of when Tyler Perry tried to play Alex Cross. Just not believable. As the series dragged on, and scene after scene of two people inexplicably whispering to each other plot points (why not SHOW us?) it was really hard to stay awake.

Watching Colman run was painful. Always funny to me when non-athletic actors get the opportunity to play action-heavy roles. (He wasn't great with the action on Fear the Walking Dead, and he's not here either). It always takes me out and smells like a vanity project. His mouth hangs open every scene when he's "thinking" (a tell that he's not comfortable and preoccupied with playing "straight" in my opinion). Not everyone gets to be an action star.

On to the next. Skip this one.