Black Rabbit, Netflix review - grime and punishment in New York City

They say no good deed goes unpunished, so when New York restaurateur Jake Friedken (Jude Law) allowed his wayward and star-crossed brother Vince (Jason Bateman) back into his life, he might have expected to experience a little turbulence. Instead, he finds himself engulfed in a hair-raising struggle to save his career and even his life.

While Vince has high-tailed it across country from Reno, where his encounter with a couple of con-artists found him running one of them over (twice) in a parking lot, Jake has been gee-ing up his staff for a visit by the New York Times restaurant critic. A positive review could catapult his Black Rabbit restaurant and VIP lounge to a new plateau of success, and help to bring to fruition Jake’s dream of opening a new establishment in the Pool Room of Manhattan’s prestigious Four Seasons hotel.

Nice dream, but it’s not going to be that simple. As the story unfolds, it evolves into a twisty and turbulent saga of the Friedken family history, with flashbacks gradually piecing together an agonising story of domestic abuse and fatal trauma. The brothers’ history has involved them being in a successful rock band together, and they were originally partners in setting up the Black Rabbit. They’ve subsequently grown apart, but their fraternal bond survives on some mysterious subliminal level.

While Jake has turned the Black Rabbit into a buzzing Big Apple hot-spot, Vince has been caught up in a spiral of larceny, his prospects not enhanced by a corrosive drug addiction. There’s also the little matter of the $140,000 debt which he’s managed to rack up over the years, which the merciless Mancuso gang are determined to recoup.

The show is fuelled by the powerful twin leads of Bateman and Law, with both actors seizing their roles in a ferocious thespian grip. Bateman, in contrast to his portrayal of the icily-controlled bent accountant Marty Byrde in Ozark, skilfully depicts Vince’s sweaty desperation and insecurity, while Law’s Jake is a convincing mix of determination, ambition and loyalty to the team he has assembled around him. This affords scope for a cluster of impressive supporting roles, including Sope Dirisu as the rapper and entrepreneur Wes, Cleopatra Coleman as his partner (and interior designer) Estelle, Amaka Okafur as the Black Rabbit’s esteemed chef Roxie (pictured above) and Abbey Lee as Anna the charismatic bartender. The Ozark connection also extends to its co-star, Laura Linney, who directs two of Black Rabbit’s eight episodes (as does Bateman).

Meanwhile, the bad guys get plenty of rope. Ruthless underworld bookie Joe Mancuso is played by deaf actor Troy Kotsur (pictured right), and his aggressive gestures and sign language impart a sense of unfathomable menace to his debt-recovery operation. Forrest Weber’s portrayal of the psychotic hoodlum, Junior, is another hideously memorable ingredient.

The strength-in-depth cast, allied with powerfully atmospheric cinematography which exploits New York’s grimy backstreets as well as its widescreen panoramas, helps to stir up a powerful magnetic field, though the story feels like it’s running short of gas as it reaches its last couple of episodes. Indeed, there’s a kind of 10-minute dead spot in episode seven where the narrative seems to have been parked in neutral. Overall, though, it’ll persuade you to give it the benefit of the doubt.

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