On the one hand, many of the things that make Bad Monkey entertaining are annoying. On the other, many of the things that make Bad Monkey annoying are entertaining. Viewers are liable to tumble to one side or the other. I stepped toward the former enough to see it through, but never strayed far from fraught line it walks between enjoyable and irksome.
Based on a novel by Carl Hiaasen, Bad Monkey introduces us to the garrulous Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), a former Miami homicide detective, exiled to the Florida Keys thanks to his perverse personality — which, like the show, tends to vex as often as it charms. Suspended from the force for his impulsive behavior, Yancy becomes intrigued when asked by his partner (John Ortiz) to deliver a severed arm to the Miami medical examiner’s office. Even without his shield, Yancy starts looking into the case, dragging along the M.E., Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez). The mystery ultimately involves a pair of devious real estate developers (Rob Delaney and Meredith Hagner), whose business-empire tentacles extend into the Bahamas, where their rapacious plans threaten the home and livelihood of a young fisherman named Neville Stafford (Ronald Peet). Yancy’s investigation and Neville’s resistance set them on a collision course, in mutual defiance of a conspiracy helmed by greedy fraudsters.
Bad Monkey makes a number of narrative decisions, and its worst one is a jokey, unnecessary voiceover narration. Intended, perhaps, to recapture the conversational tone of the book (?), the narrator lends metafictional playfulness to the proceedings that might have been appealing, had it not so often described exactly what had just happened. It’s an excruciatingly needless device that steps on the tone the actors are perfectly capable of engineering without it. Especially crucial to this breezy style is the perfectly deployed Vaughn, who brings an amusing, rapid-fire banter to his over-sharing hero. Yancy is annoying, but still likable, which is precisely what the role requires. Hagner, having already honed her ditzy narcissism on Search Party, makes for a nicely deplorable villain, and the rest of the cast — Delaney, Martinez, Ortiz, Peet, Zach Braff, Bob Clendenin, Scott Glenn, and Alex Moffat, among others — keep up nicely. While the tone and the energy are fun, the mystery itself isn’t particularly deep or interesting, nor are the character journeys especially insightful. The plot and the pacing, meanwhile, are jumbled. Rambling subplots involving Michele Monaghan (as Yancy’s erratic girlfriend Bonnie) and Jodie Turner-Smith (as a Bahamian practitioner of witchcraft, recruited by Neville) provide showy roles but feel tangential, failing both to integrate or to resolve satisfactorily. Ultimately, Bad Monkey is a mixed bag, as sloppy as it is funny, without much to say but with enough appealing elements to justify a casual watch.
