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For a story set in the remote wilderness of Yosemite Park, Netflix’s new crime thriller Untamed sure is very careful not to veer off the well-trodden track. Between the mysterious dead young woman, the irascible investigator and his rookie sidekick, the six-part mini-series plays out like any number of detective shows — just with more bears and coyotes.
Might there also be another beast loose in the park? After an unidentified twenty-something falls off the top of El Capitan with grisly wounds on her leg and a strange gold leaf tattoo on her arm, special agent Kyle Turner (Eric Bana) is unconvinced by his colleagues’ hasty assumptions of suicide or animal attack. Partly because he’s a wilful contrarian who hates just about everyone but his horse and ex-wife (Rosemarie DeWitt), but also partly because he’s still haunted by some unsolved cases. In a sprawling expanse roughly the size of Rhode Island, it’s easy for people to disappear — and for perpetrators to hide.
While lone wolf Turner has been leading a solitary existence in a park cabin since suffering a personal tragedy, he grudgingly allows a new recruit from the LAPD to join the hunt for a potential killer. She’s Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a beat cop turned ranger who comes to Yosemite looking for a change of pace only to almost be mauled by a bear and nearly drown in a flooded gold mine on her first case.
And yet neither of those scenarios are perhaps quite as daunting or uncomfortable as trying to make chit chat with the taciturn Turner — who’s less brooding than he is, well, a bit boring. While Bana certainly looks the part of the rugged, tormented detective, he struggles to make this archetype his own with a rather one-note performance — which is done few favours by a cliché-heavy script. More engaging is Santiago as the affable, initially underestimated Vasquez, who gradually wins her partner’s trust. Sam Neill meanwhile brings some warmth as the veteran chief ranger, whose solicitousness towards Turner may just be tinged with a touch of self-interest.
The sense of mystery — and the hint of a wider conspiracy potentially involving a reclusive park hunter and a hippie cult — is serviceable enough to keep us following the trail to the end. But little of what we see during our visit to Yosemite is inspiring or natural — from the contrived writing to the signature Netflix aesthetic that makes everything look more overproduced than untamed.
★★☆☆☆
Streaming on Netflix from July 17
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