Weekend Watch: The Kids In The Hall, The Lincoln Lawyer
Canadian comedy legends and a car-based legal eagle
Image Credit: Prime Video
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Canada’s greatest comedy imports return and Mickey Haller drives to TV... Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
The Kids In The Hall was a show I used to make sure I watched (and recorded when I couldn’t) back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, despite it being late night on British TV.
They were hilarious – rude, but smart with it, subversive and very different from much of what I was watching either on UK telly or from the States. And while not every sketch hits (how many shows can you truly say that of anyway?), they rarely laboured a joke that wasn’t working – if something fell short, another sketch was on its way soon after.
Their movie, Brain Candy, is very far from what anyone would call a classic (something that the new show is at pains to laugh about, along with the idea that this is the Kids selling out), but it’s still a weird, experimental and, yes, funnier film than some of the attempts by TV stalwarts to leap to the big screen.
Since the show ended, the team has primarily shown up in guest roles elsewhere and are often the funniest thing in whatever they grace. They teamed back up again for Death Comes To Town, and while that certainly had some comedy value, it never hit the highs of their sketch background.
I’m happy, then, that Prime Video has lured them back with the offer of a new show where they’d have the chance to bring more lunacy to the service. It’s good to have characters such as Buddy Cole (Thompson’s flamboyant gay bar owner), chattering secretaries Cathy and Kathie (and their employer, A.T. & Love) back on my screen.
But while the Kids have dipped into some of their greatest hits, they’re not resting on their laurels – there is innovation aplenty here, with new characters and ideas on display. They’re also still unafraid to push boundaries.
And unlike some other comedy groups, there isn’t an unbalanced level of chops on display here – everyone has their own strengths, and all find a way to bring full life to whatever they’re playing. Even small roles come across as proper characters as opposed to living props.
Though the troupe’s comedy could seem as dated as Monty Python might to modern eyes, like the Pythons, the Kids have a subversive, crafty style that keeps them relevant and funny.
But between this and Mike Myers’ The Pentaverate, it’s a good time to be a fan of Canadian comedy favourites back driving their own material instead of showing up in other peoples’ work (and this is, unfortunately for Myers, a much more diverting example).
All eight episodes of The Kids In The Hall are on Prime Video now. I’ve seen the first five.
Image Credit: Netflix
The Lincoln Lawyer is a fun, charming, energetic and slyly cynical adaptation of Michael Connelly’s popular, long-running book series. Unfortunately, that description refers to the 2011 movie. Matthew McConaughey, on the precipice of his award-winning “McConaugssaince”, plays cocky, driven lawyer Mickey Haller, a defence lawyer who does most of his business out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car.
It's not really something I can say about Netflix’s new TV version, which sits moping in the shadow of that movie.
There are positives to find in the show – Becki Newton and Neve Campbell, playing Mickey’s two ex-wives (one of which works with him, the other with whom he shares daughter Hayley, portrayed by Krista Warner) are both bright spots in the cast, bringing different energy and, while not always served by the script, making it work. Likewise Jazz Raycole as Izzy Letts, who Mickey helps keep from prison and ends up becoming his driver.
Trouble is, this series only works if you have a charismatic Mickey Haller, and unfortunately, for me at least, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo so heavily underplays it that he comes across as blank central space at the core of the show. It’s not all Garcia-Rulfo’s fault either, as the show’s writing rarely finds the right tone for him.
While this version of Haller is recovering from an accident and a painkiller addiction, rebuilding his career after time away, he’s often so morose as to feel like he’s sleepwalking through life. Which is hardly what you want from a smooth-talking lawyer character who pledges to help people. True, there are moments where he turns on the sparkle, particularly when he’s using his street contacts to win cases or pulling one over smug cops, but those are few and far between.
It doesn’t help that the show rarely looks like something that Netflix has poured its usual expansive budget into – this is clearly no Stranger Things. This Lawyer looks like it belongs on its original destination, the A+E Network in the States (not to denigrate that set of shows, but there is a marked difference between the so-called “prestige” series that Netflix, Apple, HBO Max and others put out compared to what can be achieved by relatively thrifty cable networks.)
And for a series that, by its nature and title, boasts a lot of driving scenes, the greenscreen work is appalling, looking like it was knocked up on a home computer. There are also chunks of exposition-filled flash-forward that are shot in a way that makes it look like someone spilt a fruit drink across the screen. It’s ugly and distracting.
All this is to say that you really do expect more from something that has David E. Kelley’s name all over it: the man who made shows such as The Practice, Boston Legal and Ally McBeal really should be able to do better than this.
The series will pass the time easily enough, and the supporting performances give it some life, but I was hoping for much more from a show based on a Michael Connelly book. And it’s even more galling that you can’t have Harry Bosch show up (stupid rights issues).
My advice? Go and watch the movie if you’ve never seen it. And if you have, watch it again.
All 10 episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer’s first season are on Netflix now. I’ve seen the whole season.