Netflix’s ‘Florida Man’ as chaotic as its snarky memes

“Florida Man” memes have develop into notorious cultural touchstones — and now they’ve been tailored as a Netflix collection with a star-studded forged.

“Florida Man,” created by Donald Todd (“This Is Us”) and executive-produced by Jason Bateman, follows Mike Valentine (Emmy nominee Edgar Ramirez), an ex-cop from Florida whose life is in shambles. He’s a playing addict with a failed marriage and is at the moment beneath the thumb of inept Pittsburgh gangster Moss Yankov (Emory Cohen, “The OA”).

When Moss sends Mike to Florida to retrieve his runaway girlfriend, Delly (Abbey Lee), it units of a sequence of occasions that take Mike’s life — and the present itself — spiraling into off-the-wall instructions mixing noir, thriller and darkish comedy. 

The collection is, finally, too chaotic and scattered for its personal good — however is just not with out some shaggy allure. 

It seems that Mike was having an affair with Delly, which Moss doesn’t find out about. He’s additionally reluctant to return to Florida, partly as a result of he’s acquired an advanced relationship along with his retired cop dad, Sonny (Anthony LaPaglia) and at all times wished to flee his hometown.

Outdoors of Mike’s adventures, there’s additionally an often-comedic subplot about Sheriff Ketcher (Clark Gregg), a mysterious, gun-obsessed household man.

There are a number of subplots that match “Florida Man” memes that embody information studies which have “Florida Males” partaking in absurd crimes spurring real-life headlines: “Bare Florida man leads cops on chase in stolen college bus” or “Florida man punches bobcat to avoid wasting daughter’s canine.” 

On the present, this manifests in conditions together with an incident the place Mike tries to avoid wasting a lady from drowning on a seaside — solely to get be accused of assaulting her. On high of this indignity, he then get his unmentionables bitten by a shark … and the incident goes viral on social media.

There’s additionally a plotline involving a dismembered lifeless man present in a storm drain. 

In principle, it’s a good suggestion to make a present round these infamous “Florida Man” headlines which have develop into ubiquitous punchlines. However the collection by no means fairly gels into something coherent, nor does it get fairly outlandish sufficient to justify naming itself after these notorious memes.

The visuals are appropriately seedy — candy-colored neon flickering nightclub indicators, motel rooms, beachside dive bars — however whereas the actors all ship partaking performances, and their characters are sometimes enjoyable, we don’t know sufficient about them to really feel invested in what’s taking place. Is Mike an antihero a la Walter White? Is he a person we’re purported to sympathize with and root for? Or is he a man we’re purported to giggle at and choose with out liking – much like the “Succession characters?” Regardless of Ramirez’s valiant makes an attempt to offer Mike depth, it doesn’t really feel like “Florida Man” has figured it out. It’s a bloated mess with too many character and plotlines and an inconsistent tone that diverges from one scene to the following.

The collection performs like a tough draft of a present that might have been good … if the script had been put by a couple of extra rounds of sharpening and sharpening.