‘Black Rabbit’ Review: A Stylish New York Crime Series That Falls Short (Netflix)

When a project assembles all the right pieces—even ideal ones—and still doesn’t hit the mark, it makes you wonder what went wrong. BLACK RABBIT has everything to be a standout series, one of those shows you watch expecting it to be among the year’s best. It boasts a crime story set in New York’s streets with echoes of 1970s American cinema, a top-tier cast led by Jude Law and Jason Bateman, several renowned directors taking the helm of different episodes (Justin Kurzel, Laura Linney, Bateman himself), and a gritty, raw atmosphere that contrasts with some of the city’s trendiest spots. So what went wrong?

Let’s start with the positives. BLACK RABBIT isn’t a bad series. It simply falls short of expectations and never goes beyond depicting the world its characters inhabit. The central relationship between the two protagonist brothers is compelling, and the supporting cast complements them well. The show has pace, tension, suspense, violence, and drama. So what’s missing? In short: the script, penned by creators Zach Baylin and Kate Susman. It often feels like the writers piled up references, homages, and even outright imitations of the “edgy urban New York thriller,” threw them in a blender, and lined them up neatly. The result? BLACK RABBIT feels more like a stylistic exercise than a fully realized story.

The series seems to borrow the mechanics of Martin Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS, transplants them into a radically changed Manhattan half a century later, strips away the religious undertones, and adds a hodgepodge of dramatic devices and narrative twists common to contemporary eight-episode series. Its style nods to Scorsese and other intense New York thrillers (from DOG DAY AFTERNOON to UNCUT GEMS), but the story’s internal logic is dictated more by an algorithm than by human experience, insisting that something huge, decisive, or shocking be happening at every moment. As a result, the show never truly breathes; it lacks emotional depth and dramatic weight, unfolding instead as a relentless series of misfortunes. Ultimately, it reads like a catalogue of the bad decisions these characters can make in rapid succession.

Jake Friedken (Jude Law) owns a trendy restaurant in lower Manhattan, near the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything seems to be going well: a New York Times review is on the horizon, the crowd is growing, and the place hums with life. Black Rabbit is part restaurant, part bar, with a VIP section that runs into the early hours and trouble appears when an employee leaves late and visibly shaken after a long night partying. Meanwhile, in Reno, Nevada, Jake’s older brother Vince (Jason Bateman) lands in trouble trying to sell a rare coin collection. It gets stolen, and in a panic, he runs over one of the thieves, probably killing him.

Jake is polished, stylish, and calm; Vince is the opposite—unkempt, grungy, and unpredictable. But they’re brothers, and family ties compel Jake to take him in when Vince calls desperate for help in New York. From the start, it’s clear Vince is trouble—a ticking time bomb reminiscent of De Niro in Scorsese’s classic—but this becomes all the more obvious when he immediately encounters two thugs demanding a $140,000 debt. Neither brother has the money, and selling their late mother’s house is no solution. How will Vince manage without losing everything he cares for?

This is just the starting point for a series that stacks misfortune upon misfortune in every episode. At the restaurant, there are issues of sexual harassment, a meddling journalist, and romantic tension between the separated Jake, designer Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman), and musician Wes (Sope Dirisu), one of the restaurant’s partners and a familiar face. There are conflicts with chef Roxie (Amaka Okafor) and difficult customers. Vince also has a daughter he struggles to connect with and faces a trio of relentless gangsters—Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, Chris Coy, and Forrest Weber—who won’t stop until Vince pays. Inevitably, his brother gets dragged into the mess, revealing himself to be even darker and more unstable than expected. Add to that the brothers’ complicated past, and the story becomes even denser.

BLACK RABBIT favors nonstop intensity over credibility. Characters consistently make the worst decisions, the ones viewers know will drag them deeper into chaos. The ticking-clock debt plot is a familiar genre trope, often executed well elsewhere, but here it falters. The series begins with a teaser of a restaurant robbery near the finale, then jumps back a month. Only in the final two episodes, directed by Kurzel, does it find a rhythm, as if everything prior was mere setup for a two-hour film that should have started there. In a movie format, a few flashbacks could have efficiently conveyed the story spread here over six of the eight episodes.

All this doesn’t rob the series of atmosphere, energy, or intensity, but it rarely feels believable. Bateman and Law are very different actors, yet they manage to give their relationship credibility. When the series explores that bond with depth, it grows. But the creators focus more on keeping them running, rushing through phone calls, speeding across Manhattan, and opening every wrong door, leaving little room to explore character beyond a few childhood flashbacks that mostly justify why the brothers, despite everything, can’t sever the bond dragging them down.

A strong soundtrack—including The Strokes, Nirvana, The Walkmen, Fontaines D.C., The War on Drugs, Eels, Beastie Boys, and jazz standards—lends the show a hipster edge (the Friedken brothers, in fact, had an indie band called The Black Rabbits 25 years earlier, with a radio hit), but it can’t elevate the series beyond a stylistic gesture, another reference attempting to lend it New York urban realism. The truths of the films BLACK RABBIT pays homage to are largely absent. What stands out most is the show’s surface. If that’s enough for you, you’ll enjoy it. For those of us looking for something deeper than that, perhaps not so much.