Bad Monkey: Where to Watch the New Show With Vince Vaughn & Is It Even Good?
And yes, you've seen this monkey in one of the best comedies of this century.
On August 14, a new crime comedy series about greed, corruption, betrayal, and love on the beaches of South Florida and the Bahamas was released – Bad Monkey.
August is the perfect time for this sun-drenched show, despite the characters' shady dealings and guilty consciences.
Bad Monkey is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Carl Hiaasen, a Florida journalist and author who sets his thrillers in his home state. His novel Strip Tease was almost one of the worst movies in history. The fate of Bad Monkey was much more fortunate – for example, its rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 90%.
What is Bad Monkey About?
Off the coast of Key West in South Florida, a tourist fishes a man's arm out of the ocean. It soon ends up in the hands of Andrew Yancy, a Miami cop who was exiled to Key West and suspended from the force after an incident.
No one wants anything to do with the limb, but Yancy's sense of duty prevents him from feeding it to the alligators, as his superiors suggest. Soon a blonde woman shows up claiming that the arm belonged to her husband who died accidentally, apparently while fishing, but Andrew thinks the woman is lying.
Bad Monkey is a Good Old Noir, But With a Fresh Approach
Bad Monkey is both an old-school TV noir and an ironic reimagining of it. There is a policeman with questionable methods and cynical jokes, but a good heart. About twenty main characters who intersect. Intrigues tangled in details.
There is even a voice-over – an omniscient narrator who comments not only on the actions but also on the thoughts of the characters. He is an episodic character, an experienced captain of a tourist boat.
The main asset of Bad Monkey is of course Vince Vaughn, who plays his second major role in the TV project after his brilliant performance in True Detective. Here, Vaughn acts in his main, but in recent years forgotten comedy style. His Andrew Yancy chatters almost without a break, which is a bit tiring for those around him, but entertaining for the viewers.
As for the monkey, it's almost always in the background, but it's not a bad one (it's played by 30-year-old Crystal, a capuchin star you could see in The Hangover Part II).
The cast also includes a surprisingly naive pomeranian, a cat with strange eyes, a lame fawn, a wise manatee, a raccoon, crocodiles, lizards, turtles, seagulls, and pelicans. A worthy project, in other words.
Where to Watch Bad Monkey?
The first three episodes of Bad Monkey are available on Apple TV+.