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Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full is a massive book, in more ways than one. A 742-page social novel with an iconoclastic Atlanta real estate mogul at its center, it took Wolfe over a decade to research and write. When it was published, in 1998, Farrar, Straus & Giroux ordered a jaw-dropping initial print run of 1.2 million hardcover copies; two years later, it had sold 1.4 million. The book’s themes—money, power, race, masculinity—are just as grand.
So it’s beyond strange that the first word that comes to mind to describe the new Netflix adaptation of A Man in Full, premiering May 2, is slight. The talent involved is hardly minor. The overly prolific Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley serves as the miniseries’ writer and showrunner; Regina King, who made an impressive feature directing debut with One Night in Miami, helms half the season; and the cast includes Jeff Daniels, Diane Lane, Lucy Liu, and William Jackson Harper. Yet the scant six episodes this team delivers feel superficial, disjointed, and ultimately pointless. Tasked with updating a 26-year-old novel that has aged poorly, Kelley pares back so much context and character development that what’s left never resolves into a cohesive story.
The series unfolds during the final 10 days of hometown hero Charlie Croker’s (Daniels) life. This isn’t a spoiler. The premiere opens with an overhead shot of the real estate titan sprawled out dead on a rug. In voiceover, Charlie explains, in his Foghorn Leghorn-meets-Boomhauer from King of the Hill drawl, that he wanted to make his mark on the world: “At the end of the day, a man’s gotta shake his balls.” After celebrating his 60th birthday with a flashy party where he’s serenaded by Shania Twain, he sees his flamboyant ways challenged at an ambush meeting with a bank he owes $800 million. They want their money back, and they’re going to ruin him if they don’t get it. For the…
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