A perky, ghostly dramedy
Dear Watchers,The Turkish dramedy “Bet Your Life,” on Netflix (in Turkish, with subtitles, or dubbed), is a prototypical, even generic streaming show on most fronts. Guy returns to small hometown and gets roped into solving a mystery — one he’s more connected to than he realizes — while flanked by a pesky sidekick and a beautiful love interest. Along the way, he has to resolve some daddy issues, which he resists for the majority of the season until a big meltdown in the penultimate or maybe antepenultimate episode breaks down his defenses, at which point he will pant, weep and transform. Solve the crime, get the girl, mature from man-child to man. The spin here is that the pesky sidekick is a ghost, the mystery surrounds his murder, and everything plays out in a small Turkish town. Isa (Ata Demirer) is a gambling columnist who hasn’t made a good bet in years. Now he’s in a mountain of debt, and some unsavory types are after him. Before he can flee home, Refik (Ugur Yücel) shows up at his apartment — Refik, the local richie rich whose suicide was just on the news. Refik knew Isa’s late father, who in his day also channeled the spirit world, and Refik’s estranged daughter, Seda (Esra Bilgic), owns the vineyard where Isa’s aunt and cousin work. Perhaps they can help each other. Refik and Isa bicker to no end while Isa also clumsily romances Seda and learns more about his own family. Isa shows off his vintner skills, dreaming up a wine coupage to save Seda’s business, but she eventually grows concerned with his habit of having conversations with what appears to her to be thin air. But how can he say, “Actually, I’m talking to your dead dad, whom you hated and who is indeed a pain, though he and I have grown to love each other in gruff ways”? How indeed. The formula for these kinds of shows is a formula for a reason, and it works shockingly well here, even as various facets of “Bet” are either not very good or get lost in translation. A lot of the series exists on a wholesome, hokey plane, but flashes of cleverness, especially from Yücel’s performance, help, and the mysticism is fun and appealing. It’s not that the show qua show is so wonderful, but the same-but-different intrigue of an international McDonald’s applies here, too. Your newly available movies
Several summer blockbuster-style movies arrive on major streaming services this Fourth of July weekend. Amazon pairs John Cena and Idris Elba for “Heads of State,” a ludicrous buddy-action movie that sounds like “Air Force One” times two. Netflix presents a sequel to “The Old Guard” that adds Uma Thurman as a threat to Charlize Theron’s immortal heroes. Unless otherwise noted, titles can generally be rented on the usual platforms, including Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango at Home and YouTube. SCOTT TOBIAS ‘Bring Her Back’ (A Critic’s Pick) Supernatural fidgeting aside, “Bring Her Back” doubles down on its predecessor’s willingness to punish the innocent. I’m beginning to think that [the directors Danny and Michael Philippou] don’t just want to shatter our nerves: They want to break our hearts. — Jeannette Catsoulis (Read the full review here.) ‘From the World of John Wick: Ballerina’ With a title as cumbersome as its germinating mythology, “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” is a stone-cold, self-infatuated effort to couple another boxcar to the franchise money train. I regret to report that Keanu Reeves’s titular assassin does not appear in a tutu. — Jeannette Catsoulis (Read the full review here.) ‘Heads of State’ (Amazon Prime Video only) It’s loud albeit harmless japery, best appreciated with your air-conditioning cranked to movie theater levels. — Glenn Kenny (Read the full review here.) ‘The Old Guard 2’ (A Critic’s Pick; Netflix only) The film, directed by Victoria Mahoney, is a sure-footed romp that tightens the screws, most immediately by flexing a bigger cast and broadening the lore of the original comic book series. — Brandon Yu (Read the full review here.) ‘Thunderbolts*’ The story zigs and zags between firing guns and dropping bodies, and its tone zips all over the place. What holds it more or less together is a cast that includes Florence Pugh getting her Tom Cruise on, David Harbour playing a boisterous Russian clown and Sebastian Stan winking at Donald J. Trump. — Manohla Dargis (Read the full review here.)
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