In 2015, Vince Vaughn tried his hand at the dark world of small-screen dramas with an ill-received turn in the second season of True Detective. Luckily, his recent outing in Bill Lawrence’s playful take on Carl Hiaasen’s Florida-centric Bad Monkey (available on Apple TV+ from Wednesday) proves to be a sturdier endeavour. It’s a zany crime comedy that values aura more than content.
In many contemporary thrillers, the narrative can be intricate and play a negligible role in the enjoyment of the series. This is seen here with a plot that kicks off with finding a dismembered arm in the waters of the Florida Keys. Vaughn portrays Andrew Yancy, a former star detective in Miami police who was let go because of his distinctive character traits (coupled with an incident involving his girlfriend’s husband and a jetty).
Initially, he is hesitant about reverting to his detective days, until a friend from his police circles (John Ortiz) persuades him to bring his skills to the severed-arm case. Simultaneously, an alternate storyline follows a Bahamian fisherman (played by Ronald Peet) whose seaside home is at the mercy of an avaricious builder.
The tradition of eccentric American thrillers spans from Chevy Chase’s Fletch to Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, the latter being faithfully adapted for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson with stoner-esque devotion. This is the same realm that Lawrence, known for creating Scrubs and Ted Lasso, and Vaughn joyfully adopt in a meandering tale that amplifies the stereotype of Florida being the quirkiest place on the planet, much to the chagrin of many locals.
Bad Monkey critique: Vince Vaughn sheds his True Detective debacle with an eccentric crime comedy.
Other titles to look out for include The Cable That Changed the World, and a documentary called Hysterical, which delves into an odd ailment afflicting over a dozen teenage girls. TV Licence sales, following the decline prompted by the RTÉ pay row, don’t show significant recovery according to recent data.
Hiaasen holds a distinct style of writing where a simple act of murder is far from ordinary. An undertone of issues, such as urban renewal, environmental degradation due to progress and the inner struggles of middle-aged men, wrap around the chapters of Bad Monkey, which provides layers of depth. It brings in the idea that corruption forms the backbone of America, an ideology as old as Roman Polanski’s ‘Chinatown’, with the hauntings of past crimes persistently lurking behind the scenes.
In this narrative, Vaughn is accompanied by a gifted ensemble including Michelle Monaghan in the role of his partner Bonnie, a tough-as-nails cynic attempting to put a history of abuse behind her and Jodie-Turner Smith as an enigmatic spiritual figure based in the Bahamas. Additionally, a monkey finds its place in the plot whose part is not clarified until several episodes in.
The launch of Bad Monkey was unfortunately overshadowed by a recent interview of Vaughn where he mourned the victimization of R-rated comedies due to studio apprehension. He claimed that the fear of cancellation and backlash has resulted in Hollywood studios shying away from green-lighting bold comedic projects.
Although opinions can differ over how much we really miss a sequel to Wedding Crashers, it doesn’t pertain to Bad Monkey, a narrative that resembles an intense, illogical thriller. However, Vaughn’s presence and performance emerge as a definite highlight. At the age of 53, Vaughn seems to have begun a new journey in his career. Portrayed as a reckless investigator in a Hawaiian shirt, he almost always catches the criminal or at the very least keeps everyone entertained with his quips.