Drama
A Man in Full
Talent and intrigue ultimately can’t cloak the truth about this vulgar, crass and graphic drama on Netflix.
Joe Petrus is about to learn what it really means to have your past catch up to you.
If you were to meet Joe on the street, you’d think he was just an ordinary guy. He drops his kids off at school every morning and picks them up every afternoon. He likes exercising and spending time with his family, and he just found the perfect location to open his dream restaurant.
You definitely wouldn’t think that he has a history as a career criminal.
Three years ago, Joe was involved in a high-risk, high-reward heist. By the time it was all over and the dust settled, he had a new name, a new identity…and a duffel bag bursting with cash.
Joe has settled into his new life, even if it means lying to his family every waking moment, but he’s far from his happy ending. Someone is hunting down the members of his former crew, knocking them off a list one by one.
And if he doesn’t figure out why, it won’t be long before his name is the next one up.
It doesn’t take a criminal mastermind to figure out that Culprits, a heist-centered crime drama, is going to have some content issues. As we follow Joe in two separate timelines—one depicting the events leading up to the heist, the other showing the murders of his fellow crew members three years later—we’re treated to the genre’s standard problems.
People are shot and killed, sometimes with a gory aftermath, and Joe doesn’t hesitate to stab a man in the neck and fight multiple others hand-to-hand. And, of course, the show itself seems to take a very lenient attitude toward criminal behavior. In his life post-heist, Joe is also in a committed relationship with another man, with whom he’s raising two children; we see the couple kiss multiple times.
However, while Culprits cannot be found innocent of its content crimes, there’s something to be said for the character of Joe himself. The years following the heist seem to have changed him for the better. He deeply cares about his family, and he even puts himself at risk to save the life of a stranger.
When it comes to adverse content in the crime genre, Culprits may not be the worst of the worst…but still, tread lightly if you choose to embark on this heist. Like Joe, you may find that it comes back to haunt you.
Three years after a major heist, the members of the heist’s crew begin falling victim to a mysterious killer. Joe, a crew member who has settled into a new life, is forced to conceal evidence of his involvement to keep his past from being revealed.
Culprits makes its intentions clear from the very opening scene. A shirtless man is seen running from a masked gunman, who shoots him in the leg before he can escape. The gunman then shoots the other man in the head while he begs for his life, creating a massive splatter of blood over the ground. The rest of the episode is not nearly as gruesome, but now that the series has shown its cards, there’s no reason to believe it won’t go as far—or farther—in the future.
Before the heist, Joe worked as a bodyguard for a crime boss. During a meeting that turns out to be an ambush, he shoots and kills several armed guards and dispatches others through hand-to-hand violence. None of these kills are particularly graphic, save for one in which Joe stabs a man in the neck, resulting in a brief spurt of blood. In the present, Joe is involved in a car crash that severely injures another woman. We see her bloody face against the steering wheel while the man who hit her drives away.
Joe kisses his male partner several times, and we see them sleeping in the same bed. Rear male nudity is shown while Joe changes clothes.
In the past, beer and liquor is present at a meeting attended by Joe’s boss. Three years later, Joe hopes to obtain a liquor license to sell alcohol at his future restaurant. One of the board members is concerned it will bring “drunk kids” to the neighborhood. Joe’s partner, Jules, jokes about his eagerness to drink at his book club.
While emphasizing the importance of her plan, heist mastermind Dianne Harewood says that “the plan is God.”
The f-word is used 22 times. The s-word is heard four times, while God’s name is used in vain twice and “b–tard” is said once.
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
Talent and intrigue ultimately can’t cloak the truth about this vulgar, crass and graphic drama on Netflix.
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