Eric Bana in a mystery of uneven but promising Netflix

In the first of Netflix SavageKyle Turner by Eric Bana arrives on a hinged crime scene, graying face and rigid posture in the context of British Columbia posing for Yosemite National Park.

With a combination of snark and reverence, one of the park’s rangers refers to Turner as “Gary Fucking Cooper”, leaving little doubt of the creators of Mark L. Smith and she Smith.

Although he was filmed mainly in Canada and boasting of an Australian like his taciturn head man (and a kiwi like his good mentor), Savage wants to be a return slot of Americana infused by the West, going consciously after the public who made Yellowstone And its different ramifications in one of the most successful franchises on television.

Although Netflix invoices as a limited series, Savage is far from intrinsically closed. It is the kind of potboiler closely – often too tight – of six episodes with epic border shades that should find a receptive audience among fans of mysteries like Slow horses,, Director And DEPT. Q (as well as viewers who like the general structure of Real detectiveBut would prefer a little fewer philosophical noodles).

Savage has a captivating opening. A few nameless climbers ascended El Capitan when the corpse of a woman falls from the top, sending almost the three plunging to the ground and definitively inviting Vertigo in sensitive viewers, even if this is clearly done mainly with CG or the composition (like many elements here).

The case belongs to Turner. He is a special agent of the investigative services branch, working the park for decades after a career probably brief at the FBI. He is not sure, but he thinks he recognizes the deceased woman, who has an assortment of confusing marks, including a tattoo and “X” injuries in golden attack. Several elements of the opening do not quite meaning once the story is resolved, but you will probably have forgotten these elements at the end – and the show agrees to forget you a few things.

Turner has the observation skills of an investigator of television genius with a prestige par excellence and he shares a semi-recent personal trauma with about half of the slopes of these prestigious television dramas. Because of his genius, he does not suffer from fools, which causes the initial bite to Naya (Lily Santiago), a park of single mom park and a recent transplant from Los Angeles, which is reluctant to provide assistance.

Due to its semi-recent personal trauma and a problem of alcohol consumption whose gravity cannot determine, Turner is a constant source of concern for the long-standing paternal figure Paul SOURT (Sam Neill), which could be the head of the park, and the ex-wife Jill (Rosemarie Dewitt), an occasional real estate agent of Scott (Josh Randall), a guy if you Forget that you don’t forget.

In an extremely practical way, the case involving the dead is linked to a case of a person who has disappeared from the past of Turner, so as not to be confused with a disappeared person different from the past of Turner who also bubbles on the surface. All this leads to a resolution too well tidy and indicates that the series has too few characters for something complex to happen, which is suspect.

Initially, Savage feigned in the sense of complexity. When Turner arrives on this first crime scene, there are exhibition jokes on the jurisdiction. I was fully on board to learn the hierarchy between the Rangers, the local authorities, the park’s superintendent and what the ISB is – ready to learn the specific complications of the resolution of a murder in a national park.

And there are early clues that Savage Could be ready to dialogue with the nightmares of the endowment produced by a national service of the park which lost approximately a quarter of its full -time staff as part of cuts under the current administration. I was wondering: Savage Be the first series to evoke the black cloud of DOGE layoffs? Would be Savage Choose to celebrate the fundamental need to protect our national parks or would it reject them as much fat to be cut off from our swollen federal budget? Almost “no”, all around.

I am a suction cup for a conventional mystery in an unconventional place, and there are occasional moments when Savage Obtains the value of the installation of Yosemite – whether it is a question of replacing a diving bar with a tourist lodge or the idea of a natural reserve so large and generally under -explored that squatters can live out of radar and that people can simply disappear with an alarming frequency.

In balance, however, jurisdictional things cease to be notable, the geographical scope is strangely limited and it becomes annoying how many scenes, but generally pretty, have the same familiar locations of the Yosemite postcard. Instead of living and breathing the frame, Savage Do less with this pivotal aspect of its route than spectrum and paramant + part of Paramount + Joe PickettAbout a Wyoming gamekeeper dealing with crime and corruption on the brink of Yellowstone (as played by Alberta).

It is a show that starts with a news potential that is not achieved and, instead, is content to run a solid thread, although supported by too many shots. From the tragic background of Turner – treated as a surprise, from which my being unnecessarily shy – to everything related to Wilson Bethel as a former elite shooter who has become an animal control agent towards the last iteration of the old “using the face of a deceased person to enter his phone”, Gag, Gag, Gag, Gag, Gag, Savage Generally chooses shortcuts rather than on the substance.

However, the show moves quickly – the shortcuts will do it – and, in Bana and Santiago, it has exactly the kind of partnership incompatible in its center that the genre shows this type. Bana is gruff of Bourru, transmitting the square authority and the maturity of salt and pepper without pushing Turner too far into the type of emotional torment that could make Savage In a study of character rather than whodunit. Santiago compares himself with a sweetness with wide eyes and credible sarcasm, to be provided Savage With a burst of humor that you cannot anticipate according to the writing credits of Mark L. Smith on The ghost And, more recently, brutal of Netflix Primordial American.

Neill and Dewitt both have subscribed characters, but they provide doses of heat each time they appear, sometimes socks in history as Jill is brought to Babysite Naya’s child without discernible reason. Advice from a dignified but insufficiently used set come from Raoul Max Trujillo, JD Pardo and Alexandra Castillo.

By the final, mainly thanks to Bana and Santiago, but partly because of the novelty of the frame, I was generally engaged with Savage And even had a thought that rarely comes to my head these days: it could be an episode or two more. So maybe Netflix can reconsider this “limited” thing.