‘A Man in Full’ Review: Regina King and David E. Kelley’s Netflix Miniseries Is Wild, Sloppy Satire
Every man in “A Man In Full” is a piece of shit. They’re selfish, they’re abusive, they’re obsessed with their balls — not one could hold a baby without making them cry. But the first sign that Netflix‘s six-episode series has gone awry is that they’re not total pieces of shit. They’re mostly, partly, or just a little bit shitty, and their failures to embrace the truest, richest, most complete versions of themselves turns out toothless satire, sharing little of note about these buffoonish bros and even less about modern society.
Take Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels), an ex-college football star and prevailing real estate mogul. He’s both a man of the people and a man often described as an ass hole, possibly because guests at his country estate are forced to watch horses have sex. There’s also his latest rival, Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey), a wimpy loan officer who screams at his neighbors for fornicating too loudly while he’s being sued for half-a-million dollars by a woman eager to expose his “shameful” kinks. Raymond’s boss, Harry Zale (Bill Camp), isn’t much better. He touts the importance of “being able to kick another man’s ass” as a prerequisite for a business meeting (and no, he’s not speaking figuratively). Hell, even the mayor of Atlanta (William Jackson Harper) has no qualms about publicizing an innocent woman’s rape if it means he can secure reelection.
These are the men of “A Man in Full,” and each one of them is a piece of shit. …save one. Conrad Hensley (Jon Michael Hill) is happily married. He’s about to be a father, and he’s excited to be a good one. He works 9-to-5 on the factory floor, while his wife, Jill (Chanté Adams), serves as an executive assistant for Charlie. Technically, Conrad also works for Charlie (at Croker Industries), but his story is rooted elsewhere. When coming out of the grocery store, Conrad sees his car getting towed and, like any of us, tries to get out of it. The parking enforcement officer sees a Black guy running and immediately calls for backup, the backup arrives ready to bust heads, and Conrad’s head does indeed get busted.
From there, Conrad’s story only gets darker, scarier, and sadder. He’s put through Georgia’s judicial system, which wasn’t too kind to Larry David when he recently violated local election laws, so we know it won’t be any better for a no-name Black man accused of hitting a cop. Making a leap from HBO’s long-running comedy to Netflix’s latest algorithmic victim may feel like a big one, but it’s no bigger than the leap from Conrad’s story to the rest of “A Man in Full,” which is too short for all the points of view it wants to honor and too long to justify the meager points it has to make.
Despite man after man mocking the weakness of others (and railing against their own), “A Man in Full” ends up sapping what little strength it has as a blunt sendup of excess machismo.
Part of the issue is tone. Conrad’s experience is a harrowing, unrelenting nightmare, and it’s portrayed as such. But the rest of “A Man in Full” is loud-and-proud satire. Aside from Conrad, the bulk of the show revolves around white guys screaming vulgar threats at one another. Raymond and Hank want to destroy Charlie, and Charlie wants to fuck them over in return. They hold multiple meetings just to shout fresh insults at each other. They are powerful and evil, but they’re also silly and laughable.
I get the sense that Conrad’s story is meant to contrast what happens in America when a working Black man tries to be his truest self vs. when all the rich white men do the same; the systemic restrictions placed on Conrad’s identity, who can’t even speak to a cop without risking his life, simply don’t exist for men like Charlie, who can be vehemently hated by everyone around him, yet still go stew on his private jet. While a valuable idea, it’s inadequately captured. His story is too half-baked to stand on its own (Conrad individuality isn’t well-defined) and way too heavy to support the A-plot. In the hands of TV veteran (and former attorney) David E. Kelley — who’s very loosely adapting Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel of the same name — Conrad’s story mainly feels like an excuse to get back in the courtroom.
Which brings us to another problem: awareness. Jill’s connection to Charlie results in Charlie’s highly touted chief counsel, Roger White (Aml Ameen), serving as Conrad’s attorney. On the one hand, Roger is a great attorney. Why else would Charlie rely on him? On the other hand, he’s not a criminal attorney, a point that gets made repeatedly as Conrad’s situation steadily deteriorates. For a while, it seems like this is meant to be part of the show’s broader point about men: They’re selfish. They’re proud. They let their personal ambitions get in the way of the greater good, and that usually means other people suffer for it.
But Kelley (who receives sole writing credit) doesn’t follow through. Instead, he twists himself in knots to make sure the two most prominent Black men are exceptions to the toxic traits seen in every other bro. Roger may have his heart in the right place, but not only does his ego risk another man’s life, he also knows it’s ethically inexcusable to work for his shady boss, and he goes through with both anyway. If “A Man in Full” had the time and tools to examine the necessity of sacrificing personal morals to survive in late-stage capitalism (beyond assurances that Roger’s family needs the money), perhaps a believably complicated character could thrive among so many one-note fools. Instead, he just comes across as oblivious. Meanwhile, Conrad’s actions are more plainly righteous, but there’s a violence in him that doesn’t mesh with the idea that he’s a good dude in a dangerous world. His actions against the cop are defensive, but his actions elsewhere are more complicated — too elaborate to be reactionary, and too quickly deployed to be dismissed.
When “A Man in Full” leans into its blaring contempt for men whose pursuit of whatever they want tramples anyone in their way, it can be entertaining, even distressingly fun. With the blubbering Southern drawl of an unwell Frank Underwood, Daniels seems to savor every second playing Charlie, a Trump-coded property tycoon — you can almost see his hair turn orange when, after being told he’s $1 billion in debt, he yells, “I am a legitimate and good businessman!” Pelphrey is equally amusing as his opposite, a trembling dummy trying to seize his one shot at one-upmanship by limply imitating Charlie, whose cutthroat nature he loathes and envies in nearly equal measure. Diane Lane and Lucy Liu give it their all, but the series has little interest in women beyond how they affect men. Harper, fresh off his first Tony nomination, is more measured as a desperate mayor trying to wield Charlie’s influence before it fades away, but the supporting role really only allows for two opportunities: to show people he can play the opposite of his principled “Good Place” character just as convincingly as he played Chidi, and to work with two icons: Thomas Schlamme and Regina King, who split directing duties.
King, coming off her feature debut with “One Night in Miami” (but with years of episodic directing under her belt), helms the premiere and returns for the final two episodes. She sets a rollicking mood from the start, taking advantage of Charlie’s 60th birthday party — set to Shania Twain’s on-the-nose anthem “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” — to zip through character introductions and get right into the boardroom brawls. As lively as it is explicit, the opening hour or so is easygoing entertainment, which is exactly what King says she was going for in her director’s statement: “Our intention for ‘A Man in Full’ is twofold: to deliver a story the audience can sit back and enjoy with a bag of popcorn (OK, maybe two bags), and to offer an opportunity for people to recognize the human qualities we all possess.”
It’s the latter intention that runs the series afoul. Wolfe’s book may have been written decades prior to 2016, but the Netflix adaptation still exists in the here and now. It can’t be a post-Reagan sequel to “Wall Street” because there already was one, and it can’t be a sequel to “The Wolf of Wall Street” because its imitation is too inept. At one point, Charlie is told — without a trace of self-awareness — “Liars and crooks are electable. Rapists not so much.” Um, excuse me? What world are you living in? Certainly not the one where a former president has an entire Wiki page dedicated to his alleged sexual assaults. Trump and his GOP cronies have proven time and time again they won’t let their long-dormant humanity get in the way of their power, money, or personal interests, and to watch their stand-ins pretend otherwise dulls the series’ satiric edge down to nothing.
It doesn’t help that many of the complaints about these guys are vague, which allows them to be both anyone and no one. Charlie is a hero, a villain, and an antihero. He’s irredeemable and on the path to redemption. He’s a piece of shit, and he used to be a piece of shit, but he’s not total piece of shit. A man in full that may be, but he still ends up empty.
Grade: C-
“A Man in Full” premieres Thursday, May 2 on Netflix. All six episodes will be available at once.
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