‘Culprits’ Review: Hulu’s Crime Thriller Is a Long Con with Little Payoff
During the “NOW” timeline of “Culprits,” there’s a relatively brief scene where our lead, Joe (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is held captive. Tied to a chair and fearing the worst — that the unknown goon squad picking off his peers, one by one, has finally caught up to him — Joe is petrified… until his captor starts talking. His posture, his intonation, his vernacular. He’s just not good at making threats. Professional killers don’t have to overextend themselves when making a point. They’re killers. They will just kill Joe — or torture him or otherwise infringe upon his well-being in a way that’s inescapable — if he doesn’t do as he’s told. But this bozo, even before he dumbly identifies his boss (who’s nowhere near as scary as the shadow organization of assassins Joe’s really worried about), he clearly isn’t a killer. He might be a ruffian or a weightlifter or just a big-ish fella, but he’s way out of his depth — compared to the other team hunting Joe, and to Joe himself.
Such a scene should speak in favor of a show like “Culprits,” which aims to blend the tense thrills of a caper with the black comedy of a Guy Ritchie movie. Instead, it only shows the bank vault-sized gap between the series and its inspirations, since, later on, in the many, many, many scenes featuring gun-to-the-head threats, they can’t talk the talk either. They’re better than the doofus holding Joe, but they, too, don’t hold themselves with enough confidence, speak with convincing clarity, or comprehend the value of succinct, well-chosen vocabulary. Pointing out the overt flaws in a lesser opponent may elevate “Culprits” above the laziest crime tales out there, but it also makes clear that this one is only striving for mediocrity.
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“Culprits” tells its simple story over two timelines, because of course it does. (What streaming original doesn’t, these days?) The first introduces us to Joe the family man, who’s living in a nice house with his fiancé Jules (Kevin Vidal) and his two soon-to-be step-kids. He just bought an old hardware store that he’s planning to renovate into a bistro, and he seems perfectly happy running errands, making dinner, and talking about a dreaded book club meeting with his beau. He’s so happy, in fact, he’s able to keep his cool when confronted with overtly racist cops and overtly racist bureaucrats — a set-up that never actually goes anywhere, whether it’s engaging in the racism this Black British guy faces in America or even following up later on, to find out if he overcomes their overt discrimination. (Maybe in Season 2? This so-called limited series never feels like there’s a Season 2 in mind.)
The second timeline provides some insight into Joe’s extensive tolerance: Turns out, Joe’s in hiding. Back in London, during the “BEFORE” sequence of events, Joe was recruited for a dangerous heist with a massive payoff. It seems to have gone well, given the giant bag of money he spends most of the first episode protecting, but we still flash back to see various snippets of the theft throughout the series, starting with its organizer: Dianne Harewood (Gemma Arterton) is an infamous criminal across the pond, as feared by her collaborators as she is by her targets. But she tends to get what she wants, and that includes Joe. Soon, he’s sitting with a team of specialists, all hired to handle one part of an intricate operation that never actually seems as difficult or elaborate as Dianne (and the show) wants you to believe.
Still, the people are somewhat important. Given codenames to protect their identities from one another (they’re all professional criminals, after all), there’s Officer, played by Kirby (formerly known as Kirby Howell-Baptiste, who you may recognize from “The Good Place,” “Cruella,” or “Barry”), a smooth-talking con artist who’s main talent seems to be her silver tongue. Then there’s Specialist (Niamh Algar), an assassin with a good handle on most weapons, and Azar (Tara Abboud), a young safecracker who often works alongside her well-connected grandfather and gets to go by her given name because she’s a late, emergency addition. Everyone else is either Brain or Soldier or Fixer — “like in a movie, no?” Driver says, when given his designation — but don’t worry too much about remembering who’s who. They’re all dead or about to be dead, since three years after the heist, a mystery killer is picking them off one by one. (Why the timelines are called “BEFORE” and “NOW” when there’s an exact length of time separating the two periods, I have no idea. Perhaps it sounds cool to some people?)
“Culprits” does a decent job investing in the people who will be alive the longest, but that connection slowly withers the longer we spend with them. Despite flashbacks, Joe’s relationship never fully makes sense. Officer is charming in the hands of Kirby, but devolves into a mess on paper, pulled between serving as Joe’s closest friend in the gang and serving the needs of an increasingly convoluted plot. “Culprits” creates twists by withholding information, some of which work well enough, but many (especially near the end) feel more exhausting than exhilarating. The eight episodes are too cruel and brutal to satisfy the “fun heist” genre, and judged on its own merits, the show fails to marry its two halves. BEFORE and NOW feel like separate shows, both incomplete and neither all that satisfying.
Certain heist tales can coast on their cool factor. The dialogue crackles, the tone hums, the action pushes everything forward. “Culprits” isn’t quite cool enough to pull that off, and it grinds to a halt every time one character points a gun at another character and they both have a chat for five minutes. Even Stewart-Jarrett, a strong actor since “Misfits” (if not before), seems to tire out as the bodies, bullets, and blather pile up. Just cut to the chase already.
Grade: C-
“Culprits” premieres Friday, December 8 on Hulu. All eight episodes will be released at once.
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