‘Florida Man’ Review: When the Meme Comes Alive in a Very Tame Way

The Florida Man meme is right now one of the most ancient memes on the internet. The joke started as more and more news reports coming from Florida detailed a series of local men who got into very strange circumstances. The result was a series of headlines that really depict Florida as one crazy place—a place where everything can happen. However, Florida Man, a new Netflix miniseries, takes the meme and tries to transform it into a drama. Does the crazy happen that inspired the meme enough to create an entire, complete narrative?

Florida Man is a miniseries created by Donald Todd and starring Edgar Ramirez, Abbey Lee, Emory Cohen, Clark Gregg, Paul Schneider, Lee Scott Davis, and Anthony La Paglia. The series tells the story of Mike, a gambling man now in the service of a Philadelphia mobster, to cover his debt. When his job takes him back to his hometown, Florida, Mike gets into more trouble than he ever imagined as he starts following the mobster’s girlfriend, who has escaped from him and desires a new life of freedom.

Florida Man as a concept is one thing that just comes to life by itself. The many news reports that brought the meme to life are really the stuff of nightmares, but they are also comedy material waiting to be exploded. Florida Man does take some inspiration from the meme, and as the series progresses, there are indeed many crazy things happening. However, the series never goes all in on the joke, and the tone remains quite tame throughout. Is it more realistic? Yes, but it is also more boring by default.

Florida Man could have been a series that showed real life’s surreal side. As it is, the show serves mostly as a standard crime drama with some black comedy elements and some crazy things happening here and there. You can feel in each episode that the show could really go all in into the surreal but stops right at the threshold. Watching this is not fun; you can definitely feel that the show is wasting its potential at every turn, and it is such a shame because the casting is excellent, and the setting is just waiting to be exploited.

Atlanta, Donald Glover’s own TV series, had an episode titled Florida Man in its second season, and that episode is everything that Florida Man, the show, should be, but it isn’t. It is understandable, though, that the series never goes to those levels of the craft. Thanks to its daring storytelling, Atlanta might be a critics’ darling, but that doesn’t fly very much on Netflix, which is always looking to get its content to the possible people. The result is that the shows need to be more normal and less crazy, even when the logic tells you, you should go all in.

If the atmosphere is lacking in craziness, and the show just works on a very tame level, is there anything that stands outs? Well, yes, the casting might be the best thing about the show. The performances are great. They are so great, in fact, that you might get a bit angry when thinking how these actors would do working on something that is a bit more daring, like Atlanta. Edgar Ramirez is the perfect protagonist for the show. He is mostly clueless, so when crazy things happen, you can see him react properly.

Ramirez could be more charismatic, and his performance is correct, but it is also the blandest in the cast. He serves as a perfect vehicle for the audience, even when he is a Florida Man himself on the show. The cast around Ramirez shines brighter and is filled with more quirky characters than the protagonist. This is something that often happens. From Harry Potter to even Batman himself, the supporting characters are way better than the protagonist for some reason.

Abbey Lee, for example, shines in a role that calls for her charisma and her weird tendencies. The model-turned-actress is quite a weird talent, and she has been going around projects that definitely tend to lean toward the weird. She would be excellent in a show like Atlanta, her looks and demeanor feel like something from another world. As she becomes the search goal very early on the show, you know that she is going to be a delight to watch on screen. She could actually be the best thing about the entire thing.

Emory Cohen is also excellent as a Philadelphia mobster with a very bad attitude. Gregg’s role feels smaller than the rest, but he also brings a very welcome unexpected factor to the entire show. Lee Scott Davis also shines, but this time by playing one of the show’s most normal and standard roles. Her importance increases as the miniseries goes on, and she is definitely someone to keep an eye on. The show is here for its actors, and they deliver.

The show’s writing is a bit spotty, it moves at a very frantic pace, which is also an editing factor, but most of the dialogue feels a bit wooden and unnatural, but not in a good way. This is where a stranger and more surreal atmosphere would have helped cover those aspects and make it much more palatable. As it is, the dialogue just feels wrong, and it should be because the series mostly sits in the real world. It would be nice if the lines would match the world around them.

In the end, Florida Man might entertain, which is its major objective, but it doesn’t really manage to go the extra mile to become a classic of the crime genre or even something that is a must-watch on the streaming service. Right now, there are a lot more crazy shows out there, like Yellowjackets, that are worth watching if you are looking for something more out there. Florida Man will find its audience because it is very well-made. If that translates into being memorable, we cannot say for sure, but we can make a bet and say that might not be true.

SCORE: 7/10