Netflix’s Criminal is a thought experiment that’s been turned into a TV show

Vulture

The police interrogation series that presents criminal investigations spread across four different countries — Spain, England, France, and Germany -- is more of an experimental show than something you'd want to binge-watch, says Matt Zoller Seitz. "The filmmakers treat each story as an exercise in filmmaking logistics, and the result often feels like an absorbing and kinetic movie adaptation of a stage play, where the goal is to make things as visually interesting as possible without contriving reasons to have characters leave the 'set' to go out into a park or take a walk on the beach for no defensible reason," he says. "Criminal: U.K. in particular is a marvel of acrobatic camerawork and clever transitions, using the video images of the suspect under surveillance in the interrogation room to transfer from one room to the next, in long takes that seem to defy basic rules of geography. Fans of formal experiments will eat the show up — at least at first. At a certain point, though, the lack of narrative and visual variety starts to leach away the novelty."

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