'Ozark' Air Date, Reviews, News: Jason Bateman's 'Breaking Bad' Moment Has Arrived
Netflix's new drama series "Ozark" will be launched on the streaming site on Friday, July 21. Jason Bateman leads the show as a finance man named Marty who is on the run from drug lords because he stole their money.
Early reviews have suggested that this show is Bateman's "Breaking Bad" moment. Well-known and loved for playing the good and stable guy in most of his films and TV show, Bateman, this time around, plays a flawed character who involves his family in his criminal enterprise, just like Bryan Cranston's Walter White on the hit AMC drama.
To keep his wife and kids safe from a kingpin who demands his money back and the FBI, Marty has to move Wendy (Laura Linney), Charlotte (Sophia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) in the resort town of Ozark. But living in hiding with family isn't always so easy.
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Marty has to come up with ways to make sure the authorities and the drug lords don't get a whiff of his new life in "Ozark." How can Marty do it while still maintaining control of his growing teenagers as head of the Byrde family?
Bateman told Los Angeles Times that if he has been simmering in many of his previous roles, this time his Marty is going to explode. He admitted that he found acting on "Ozark" tougher than directing, which he also does in the series.
"I like to be somebody who's a little bit more of a tour guide for the audience and observes those people that are doing a bunch of acting," Bateman said.
Still, he convinced Netflix and Media Rights Capital Studios to let him be both lead star and director of "Ozark" because he wanted the show to maintain a certain tone.
"Tone is tough, and having one person be in total control meant there was a good probability we'd be able to be at least creating something as satisfying as the scripts," he told Vulture.
The 10-episode drama has received 88 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of press time. Meanwhile, the show has also gotten a 69 score on Metacritic among advance reviewers.
