Untamed

Eric Bana a bit typecast as a grumpy investigator and Sam Neill investigate a gruesome death in Yosemite National Park. This could have been a tight movie but the luxury of time in a limited series allows it to unfold slowly (like the magnificent scenery) and for us to get to know all of the characters and their inter-relationships and to care about them. This intimacy makes the final revelations (of which there are more than you could possibly expect!) come as even more of a shock.

My main complaint is the explosion in the abandoned mine complex housing the drug factory. Allegedly three federal agents died but no-one seemed to be remotely upset or even bothered by this, other than giving the leads a bit more leverage over the surviving gang members. It just seemed totally callous and unnecessary for the plot. Not cool.

Oh, and did Kyle have to be quite such a dick to everyone all of the time? And wasn’t it a bit hypocritical of him to want Sam Neill’s character to “make everything right” (presumably by coming clean to everyone) when he had already dropped the Park into the middle of a wrongful death lawsuit to cover up his own wife’s involvement in the death of the missing person (albeit for good reasons, but then Sam Neill thought he has those too).

Other than that, a clever piece of writing and acting and a complex story that isn’t quite as clean cut as many.

I’ll be really interested to see where they take this in season 2.