Like It Or Lump It: A Man In Full

 

It is time for "Like It Or Lump It," where I review shows on the various streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock, and the one that says you are a couch potato) and tell you if they are any good.

Up this week: "A Man In Full" (Netflix)

"A Man In Full"  reminds me of the great Monty Python bit called "Australian Table Wines," in which Eric Idle reviews various wines from Australia. 

Specifically, "A Man In Full" reminds me of the sparkling wine "Perth Pink." Idle says "This is a bottle with a message and the message is “Beware!” This is not a wine for drinking. This is a wine for laying down and avoiding."

 Like Perth Pink, "A Man In Full" is a show with a message, and the message is "Beware". This show is so many levels of bad.  It is a show for laying down and avoiding.

Where do I start?

Easy. "A Man In Full" is based on a book by the great Tom Wolfe. Tom Wolfe wrote "The Right Stuff", which is probably one of the best books I've ever read. He also wrote "The Bonfire of The Vanities", which is almost as good as "The Right Stuff.

When I heard "A Man In Full" was set in Atlanta, I had to get it. While it wasn't as good as "The Right Stuff" and "Bonfire," it was still Tom Wolfe, which meant it was better than most of the stuff on the market.

Fast-forward from 1999 to 2024. That sound you heard was Tom Wolfe rolling over in his grave. This show, based on his book, is awful. 

There are reasons for its awfulness, and the reasons are legion.

First of all, the show is nothing like the book. Sure, the characters' names are the same, but that's about it. 

In the book, the protagonist, Charles Croker, is an Atlanta real estate tycoon who goes bankrupt and becomes an evangelist for Stoicism. (That's right, the ancient Greek philosophy.) In the streaming show, Croker is an Atlanta real estate tycoon who goes bankrupt and kills the twerp that bankrupts him.

This leads us to the biggest problem with "A Man In Full": The Biggest Star.

Jeff Daniels, a fine and talented actor, plays Charles Croker. He plays Charles Croker as a Southern-fried Donald Trump with the worst Southern accent you have ever heard since the original Shake-N-Bake commercial. 

Daniels seems to have based his accent on Buck Strickland, the owner of Strickland Propane of Arlen, Texas. If they ever make a live-action "King Of The Hill," Daniels is a shoo-in for the part of Buck Strickland. I kept waiting for him to say, "Aw, Hank."

The rest of the cast is okay. The pretty Diane Lane is Croker's first wife and her accent comes and goes. Ami Armeen plays Croker's superstar in-house counsel, Roger White. One of the few positively portrayed men in the movie, White does some legal hocus-pocus to save Croker's admin's husband from going to the Fulton County jail. However, he only does this after he listens to his wife.

This leads us to another reason for the awfulness of this show: the writing.  

This show was written by David Kelley, the television writer who created "Ally McBeal," "The Practice," "The Lincoln Lawyer," and "Boston Legal." 

All of the male characters are either total jerks, stupid, or a combination of the two. 

Kelley has a subplot with Roger White working with the mayor of Atlanta, played by William Jackson Harper (who was in "The Good Place"). Harper is good as the two-face weasel mayor. The only problem is that the mayor is running for re-election against a Trump-like white populist, which is rich considering Atlanta has had a mayor of color since I was in 10th grade.*

Kelley's Atlanta has no Varsity, Peachtree Street, Lenox Square, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Publix Grocery stores, or Georgia State University.

In Kelley's Atlanta, people have to parallel park when they go to the grocery store and are booted and towed away when they are just a little bit over the line into the no-parking zone.

There is Buckhead because that's where Charlie and them live. There's also Georgia Tech because Charlie was once a big-time football player at Tech.

Charlie is in what bankers call "Super Duper Debt" because he owes the bank over a Trillion Dollars, and they have the nerve to want their money back.

Most of the series is about the bankers and Charlie cussing at each other about the debt. Charlie tries to figure out a way to pay off some of the debt, and this involves having some rich Yankee liberals watch horses mate. 

The bank has the gall to repossess Charlie's plane in front of the rich Yankees who thought equine husbandry was horse rape.**

The twerp banker begins to date Charlie's ex-wife. One thing leads to another, and the Twerp and ex-wife do the South Carolina lovey-dovey.

Charlie busts in on the lovin' and threatens the life of the Twerp. Now the Twerp has taken not one but two Viagra pills, and he opens his robe and shows he is a man in full, too.

Charlie begins to choke the Twerp, and since Charlie has arthritis (huh?), he can't let go of the Twerp's throat. The Twerp dies, and Charlie has a heart attack and dies too.

None of that happened in the book.

The stats on "A Man In Full"

Violence: A little.

Language: There is lots of cussing, and nobody goes to church except except one of those dancing and hollering churches where people jump the pews. Glory!

Sex: A little at the end after the Twerp takes two Viagra pills.

Nudity: Full frontal Twerp nudity. Diane Lane's rear end, maybe, because she is a pretty big star and she's getting up there in age so they could have used a stunt butt.

Verdict: Lump It, if you haven't guessed already.

*I'm turning 65 in August in case you want to save up and get me a birthday present. 

** I'm not sure how bringing these Yankees to watch Dad horse and Mom horse make a Baby horse was suppose to make the Yankees buy Charlie's companies. I'm also not sure how the Yankees thought baby horses were made.