The Pitch: It’s not hard to imagine the elevator pitch for Netflix’s new action-comedy show Obliterated: What if The Hangover had stakes beyond a missing bachelor? Dutifully, and with raunchy relish, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald, the minds behind Cobra Kai — another Netflix show that valorizes the oo-rah fuck-yeah media of the ’80s — fulfill that brief in exhaustive detail.
Enter the US government’s most elite special forces team, who, in the opening minutes of the series, successfully shoot, hack, and quip their way through a nail-biting bid to defuse a five-kiloton nuclear device set to blow up Las Vegas. Naturally, these type-A soldier types play as hard as they work, so they decide to celebrate by open up the discretionary slush fund for a drug-and-sex-fueled bacchanal in the middle of the Strip.
But right as their various highs and hormones are about to crest, they get a message from Command: The nuke they disarmed was a fake, and the real one’s about to go off in about seven hours. Now they’re back on the clock, with enough coke, booze, and psilocybin in them to zonk out an entire zoo. Can they sober up enough to save the day? Or will what happen in Vegas destabilize the Western world?
The MDMA-Team: It’s fitting that Consequence recently opined on the increasingly blurred lines between film and television, and what happens when stories fit for the efficient runtime of a movie get unnecessarily stretched out for hours of binge-watching. Obliterated is the dipshit version of this, a neat, schlocky idea with a charming cast that could easily make for a fun, diverting two-hour romp — only to get stretched out to eight challenging hours.
The opening hour is a blast, efficiently setting up the team, its wants/needs/vices, and the various journeys they’ll have to take before the evening is out. At the top is Agent Ava Winters (Shelley Hennig), the high-strung team leader who clashes with blustering, bro-ey tactical lead Chad McKnight (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow‘s Nick Zano, rocking a decidedly 2010s-Brad-Pitt-era mop of stringy dirty-blonde hair), crawling through classic action-movie sexual tension fueled by the booze and drugs coursing through their system.
Flanking McKnight is his two soldier BFFs, Trunk (Terrence Terrell), fighting an increasingly empty stomach as each new fight drags him from the snacks he needs to thrive, and crack sniper Gomez (Paola Lázaro), whose hookup with a bride-to-be at her bachelorette party complicates their mission in unexpected ways.
But wait, there’s more: There’s the mousey “Tech Chick” Maya (Kimi Rutledge), who carries a torch for Chad; Paul Yung (Eugene Kim), the team’s straight-edge helicopter pilot who unknowingly takes a few too many bites of the mushroom-laced guac; and Michael Buble-loving explosives expert Hagerty (C. Thomas Howell), who spends most of the series either lost, unconscious, or off on one hedonistic adventure or another. (Eventually, a random party girl named Lana, played by Alyson Gorske, grows from unwitting hostage/witness to a vital part of the team, a sorta-cute development that the writers cut off at its heels with an obnoxious, predictable twist.)
Obliterated (Netflix)
Surprisingly, a lot works about this overstuffed cast of characters and their bundle of quirks: The cast digs amiably into the goofy material, with Zano, Hennig, and Terrell as particular highlights. The team’s journey to defuse the bomb takes them on a number of asides — nightclubs, the Vegas desert, a shootout at Caesar’s palace — and the action seems well-choreographed, even if it’s ruined a bit by some too-frenetic cinematography and more than a few rivulets of ridiculous CG blood. (Even the Rambo-loving, commie-hating McKnight would lament the lack of squibs here; we used to be a proper country.)
Forget about the villains and their motivations, too — another consequence of the show stretching out a simple premise to such a ridiculous length is the half-dozen thin villains that end up popping up and getting smacked down like a game of Whack-A-Mole. Take one out, and another takes the reins for a few episodes. By the last couple of episodes, you, like the team, are just begging for the escapades to finish.
See Thomas Howl: But for every joke that elicits a charmed chuckle (mostly coming out of Zano’s mouth; he does laconic quite well), five more are uselessly filthy. Raunch can be great when used well, but Obliterated circles back to the same tired frat-boy gags a bit too frequently. There are glowstick dildos, clumsy double entendres, and more prosthetic dicks than you can shake a, well, prosthetic dick at. By the time you see Jason Mantzoukas voicing a CG gremlin that continually taunts the balls-tripping Paul, it’s hard not to feel like Hurwitz et al. are following the misanthropic Hangover formula a bit too rigidly.
The biggest waste, frankly, is Howell, who has a blast with the limited screen time he’s given, but spends three entire episodes being carted around by the rest of the team as he sleeps off his own high. Much as it might be fun to see him Weekend at Bernie’s his way through an apocalyptic event, it feels like a waste to then spend much of the rest of the time wandering around Vegas getting up to his own less-interesting adventures, when the show’s chief appeal is the chemistry between its team. It’s evidence of just how much the writers had to stretch this thin premise beyond its breaking point.
Obliterated (Netflix)
The Verdict: Obliterated is a delightful but frustrating watch, a square peg trying desperately to fit into a round hole. The cast has infectious chemistry, it makes creative use of its budget and its Vegas setting, and there’s enough raunch there to satisfy the whims of anyone bristling at how tame and puritanical mainstream media has become in recent years.
But you have to sift through a lot of dead air, repetitive twists, and hazily-staged action in between McKnight’s next quip or Trunk’s latest snack attack to get there. Give this the opposite treatment BlackBerry or Australia/Faraway Downs received — trim it down to a tight 2 hours 15, cut some of the more juvenile gags while you’re at it — and this’d be a grand old time at the pictures. As is, Obliterated‘s high wears off far too quickly, leaving you checking your watch to see how long you have to wait till the party’s over.
Where’s It Playing? Obliterated is currently streaming on Netflix.
Trailer:
