A Man in Full

A Man in Full

Jeff Daniels chewing scenery is one of the genres of television that I love the most. However, he carries such studious charisma whether he plays a news anchor in “The Newsroom” or a detective in “American Rust.” David E. Kelley’s “A Man in Full” gives Daniels yet another challenge: Colonel Sanders meets Logan Roy as Atlanta real estate tycoon Charlie Croker, whose bank accounts are empty. But despite the efforts from Daniels and a few other actors, it’s not a great miniseries.

Even direction from folks like Regina King and Thomas Schlamme can’t save this ho-hum social class drama.

Based on Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel but translated into the 21st century, “A Man in Full” follows Southern-fried Croker (Daniels) who lives like every other wealthy business tycoon real or fictional flies around in private jets, has a much younger wife (Sarah Jones), and most importantly bleeds money like the bank isn’t coming to get him. After his ostentatious 60th birthday party where his closest aristocratic business friends gather to watch none other than Shania Twain (a wild cameo) perform some of her greatest hits, the bank comes knocking wanting their loan money back $800 million worth.

Shortly after the festivities, Croker meets with Planners Bank; his opponent Harry Zale (a fierce Bill Camp) squeezes him out telling him he’s bankrupt and must start paying back what he owes. Inside that boardroom is his old prodigy turned loan officer Raymond Peepgrass (an engrossing Tom Pelphrey), a real name nobody decided to update for some reason, who has it out for Croker. As his troubles compound, Croker scrambles to find investors for his monolithic business.

Croker’s woes play out during a mayoral election season where his former business colleague runs against Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper), a young Black mayor vying for his second term. Right when Croker needs his corporate attorney Roger White (Aml Ameen) at his side, he instead tasks him to help his secretary Jill Hensley (Chanté Adams) with a racially charged trial involving her peacekeeping husband Conrad (Jon Michael Hill), convicted of assaulting a violent police officer over a parking violation that lands him at a hostile correctional facility.

I went into “A Man in Full” thinking it would fill the “Succession”-level void I’ve been yearning for since its conclusion. Alas, it’s nowhere near that. Thematically, it plays like a Georgia set “House of Cards” meets “The Chi,” as Kelley’s roundabout dissection of the working and upper class disparity within Atlanta isn’t anything particularly novel or interesting.

Kelley fills the proceedings with a few comical moments that were, per my research, adapted from Wolfe’s text like Croker trying to show an investor horse breeding on his plantation but these cheekier moments never cohesively tie into the distressing depiction of the American judicial system and the Black male experience that remains far too close to reality.

Kelley’s navigation through these social issues suffers from a dizzying overabundance of characters many of whom are ultimately too uninteresting and rote for a tale far too true to life. He pours his signature dramatic flair into his character writing but conjoins too many relevant, timely themes with moments of surrealism, blurring the vision.

Considering “A Man in Full”’s novel is so closely tied to 1990s politics specifically old-fashioned (white) agrarian values colliding with growing recognition of anti-Blackness in the justice system this series does its darndest to translate those social issues to modern day America.

That being said, it is full of perplexing shortcuts for Kelley’s characters through the process, which only serves to flatten such complex issues into a simple haves versus have nots narrative. It immediately asks you to invest in them as if you’ve been following their lives for years; every conversation assumes we know each party’s relationship with one another backwards and forwards.

There is no clue as to how Croker relates to anyone in his orbit, which makes the always-heightened conflict feel empty. Ameen serves as the miniseries’ best bridge he turns out an engaging, passionate performance as the only character worth watching at all. What starts as a favor for Croker quickly snowballs into something more when Conrad’s case presents him with challenges that force him to embrace his inner criminal justice lawyer and pour all his passion into getting Conrad out of the system; King directs these episodes with such grounded realism that they make all money-related threads seem monotonous by comparison.

I was certainly more interested in those than, say, the show’s multitude of subplots like the mayor’s re-election campaign or Peepgrass’ sly rise to seize Croker’s power and the miserable aspects of his pathetic little life. In other words: For a marquee series starring someone like Daniels there’s very little Daniels here. His thick Southern drawl oozes conviction, and it’s hard not to get swept up in his irresistible charisma; but unfortunately he’s just a tiny blip on this wider portrait of Atlanta that feels evergreen but rarely ever feels fully realized on its own terms.

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