Loosely based on the real-life disappearance of $70 billion in U.S. bearer bonds from Wall Street during 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, Netflix’s Kaleidoscope follows a handful of thieves as they plot and attempt to execute the heist of their lives.

Kaleidoscope is an 8-episode mini-series with a unique viewing gimmick. With the exception of the final episode, which is the heist itself, each entry in the series can be watched in any order. In fact, Netflix will randomly serve up the order for you. Whether this fact will end up being more than an interesting idea remains to be seen.

Kaleidoscope – Yellow (6 Weeks Before The Heist)

The first episode in my queue was Yellow, which follows Giancarlo Esposito’s (The Mandalorian, Breaking Bad) Leo Pap, an experienced and aging thief, as he puts together a crew for the biggest score of his life, $7 billion dollars in U.S. bearer bonds.

1 Vacation

2 Shop

3 Amazon

It’s early in the series but, so far, Kaleidoscope is an incredibly mediocre entry into the heist genre. With the exception of Jai Courtney (The Terminal List, Suicide Squad), who plays a safe cracker named Nick, it’s not even full of two-dimensional characters. Nick is a d!@k who makes stupid decisions and will obviously be a liability as the series progresses. It’s not much of a character but it’s something, which is more than can be said for the rest of the crew. Don’t get me wrong, every character has their specialty but that’s not the same thing as having a personality.

The main characters almost seem bored, and the show lacks the crisp dialogue and direction of superior heist films like Ocean’s 11 and The Italian Job, or the intensity and misdirection of films like Inside Man. Probably the biggest weakness of this episode is Giancarlo’s Pap’s sloppy planning. He spends a goodly portion of the episode making sure that the crew and the audience know just how sophisticated and impossible to break into their target is, but he allows Nick to be involved when it’s clear that he’s not up to it.

All in all, it’s serviceable enough to keep me going for a second episode, but only just.

WOKE ELEMENTS

It’s the poster child for hiring a diverse cast instead of one that makes sense, or one with the best actors.

“Diversity” for diversity’s sake is the name of the game for the series. Within the first two minutes of the episode a diverse lesbian hits on and lands another lesbian.

Jai Courtney’s character is a big dumb white cartoon alpha male and all of the other men in the crew, with the exception of the ailing and aged Leo Pap, are wussy betas.

The biggest woke offender was the moment that the possibility of aborting a child was casually bantered about with the only criteria for not doing so being a change in career. I dinged the episode hard for that one.

Kaleidoscope – Green (7 Years Before The Heist)

While Kaleidoscope “Green” (7 Years Before The Heist) still doesn’t reach the heights to which it aspires, it is a significant improvement over “Yellow.” It’s far more focused with a clear story and goal for most of its 44-minute runtime. The cast is paired down considerably which allows the story to be streamlined.  That being said, while the last ten minutes don’t come to a screeching halt. the crisp storytelling of director Robert Townsend (Meteorman) is muddled by the overarching backstory and the addition of a couple of characters from (what was for me) the first episode.

There are two glaring issues with the episode. The first is that Giancarlo is doing some tough guy accent/voice that does not work and wasn’t as pronounced in episode Green. I hope that he drops it in other installments. I already dinged the cast for being diverse rather than good (Giancarlo notwithstanding) but Paz Vega, who plays Ava Mercer is absolutely wrong for her role as a weapons expert. In this episode, she carries a gun like a child who’s only watched 80s cop dramas would. Strictly speaking, this isn’t just her fault, there should be someone on set to point these things out, but ultimately, it is the actor’s role to research the part and play it believably. It’s distractingly bad.

Overall, this episode does its job much more competently than the first did, and I’m not cringing as hard at the prospect of watching a third episode.

WOKE ELEMENTS

There’s nothing new to add here from the first episode.

Kaleidoscope – Blue (5 Days Before Heist)

Now that character intros are done for the main cast, the show has some room to breathe and the story unfolds. Giancarlo has dropped the quasi-accent/tough guy dialect that he had in Episode Green, and it’s a big improvement.

This episode focused a bit more on the antagonist, Roger Sales, played by Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist, Dark City). I’ve always found Sewell to be an underrated actor. He can be very subtle and say a lot with very little, which is what he does in Kaleidoscope.

Unfortunately, nothing really happens in this episode, we get a bigger hint as to the existence of Sales’s sordid past, but not the substance of it, and a more detailed exposition of what the heist plan details are.

The 46-minute runtime works in the show’s favor as long as the pacing remains tight, which it did for the last 30+ minutes of this episode. However, I can’t help but feel that this whole story couldn’t have been told in a single two-hour film and that it’s needlessly being stretched to fit into the choose-your-own-order gimmick. To me, it feels like someone had the idea for the gimmick first and then tried to fit a story inside of it. I’m still not convinced that it is a good thing, or just an interesting thought experiment nothing burger.

Furthermore, the story-telling lacks the spit and polish that it aspires to or thinks that it has. For instance, one of the reoccurring tertiary characters is the antagonist’s head of security, Carlos Sujo, played by Hemky Madera (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Rango), and it would seem like he must be a consummate professional. After all, he works for a sophisticated elite security company. However, on two occasions, one of which is outside in a busy city in broad daylight, he brandishes his gun in a threatening manner. It’s a bright nickel-plated pistol that is clearly meant to catch the eye. Well, the thing is, that brandishing a gun when you are not being threatened is a crime in most cities in the U.S. and is especially so in New York City, which is known for its excessively restrictive gun laws.

In another instance, this same character commits a serious felony and immediately and unnecessarily walks through thick paint on the floor. This not only leaves several footprints, but it shows things like shoe size, approximate height, probable gender, footwear manufacturer, the time that the crime took place, and all kinds of forensic details; and all the character had to do was turn around and walk out the way that he entered. It’s not the type of behavior that someone at his level should exhibit. Instead, it’s just sloppy storytelling.

Generally, speaking this was an enjoyable episode, nitpicks aside. The pacing was generally good, what story there was was relatively tight, and the performances were generally ok, with just a touch of over-acting on Jai Courtney’s and Jordan Mendoza’s part, who plays RJ (I’m fairly certain that his character is supposed to be on the Autism spectrum). There’s still enough mystery to keep me going for a fourth episode.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Nothing new to complain about. Even though I disagree with some of the casting choices, at least the women aren’t snarky and the men (Jai Courtney’s character notwithstanding) aren’t all complete morons.

Kaleidoscope – Orange (3 Weeks Before The Heist)

This episode, more than any others shows the weakness of the format. By fitting the heist story into the gimmick of being able to watch the episodes in any order, the writers have had to create a lot of filler, and I don’t care about the FBI agent’s custody issues…at all. I care even less about her unbelievable drug addiction. It’s not because drug addiction is unbelievable unto itself, but because the 2×4 piece of poplar that they cast as Special Agent Abassi couldn’t convince me that she believes water is wet.

As you may have guessed, this episode of Kaleidoscope heavily focuses on FBI Special Agent Abassi, played by Niousha Noor (known for nothing anyone has ever heard of or watched). She’s a career woman who turned to drugs to cope with the fact that she went undercover to infiltrate Islamic mosques suspected of radicalizing their parishioners and it upset her that she was used to “ruin the lives of people who looked like her.” Um, if she was ruining the lives of innocent people because of racism, what the hell is she still doing in the bureau? If she was “ruining” the lives of radicalized terrorists…what the hell is the problem? Also, undercover work is 100% volunteer and you don’t go in without knowing exactly what is expected of you, or why you are there. There’s a lot of dumb with her character, but at least she’s diverse.

Fortunately, the B story follows Paz Vega’s Ava Mercer, a lawyer, refugee/immigrant, and weapons specialist who looks as unnatural holding a gun as I do holding a purse (for clarity’s sake that’s not natural looking). She’s another wooden plank posing as an actress who’s been in as many things that no one has seen as Noor. In a twist to rival The Sixth Sense, her nanny/surrogate relative is picked up by ICE thanks to a tip by Agent Abassi (you know, the woman who, a few scenes earlier, was brought to onion-induced tears due to her having been used to “ruin” the lives of immigrants). Now, in an effort to keep Te-Te (that’s the nanny) from being deported, Ava has been brought to heel.

Is that spoilerish? Yes. Does it matter? No, this show sucks. I’m four episodes in, so I’m going to finish it, but run from this show and watch virtually anything else.

This is easily the worst episode to date. I”m only going to keep watching because I’m halfway through it.

WOKE ELEMENTS

The concept of “ruining” the lives of possible terrorists being a sad thing is dumb and feels absolutely forced and preachy.

The diversity casting in lieu of creativity and casting for the best possible outcome is in full effect.

Kaleidoscope – Violet (24 Years Before The Heist)

Finally, an episode worth watching! Violet reveals the heretofore hinted-at conflict that is the impetus for the series in the first place. While it’s not anything that we haven’t seen a million times before, and it is wildly predictable, it is also tightly paced, well acted, with economical and reasonable dialogue, and, most importantly, it has a plot and emotional through-line with relatable stakes. It also blessedly limits the regular cast to Giancarlo’s and Sewell’s characters with one little cameo by Paz Vega’s Ava.

Unfortunately, Giancarlo’s tough-guy voice is back and, while it’s more subtle in this episode than it was in Episode Green, it’s still a distraction. Also, now that the reason for Giancarlo’s desire for revenge has been revealed, I’ve got to say that it’s really not that bad. Sure, Sewell’s character behaved cowardly but not insanely so. It’s not like he set up Giancarlo’s character or betrayed him.

Ultimately, Violet is a VAST improvement over what’s come before. That being said, I have my doubts that it’s more than an anomaly but time will tell. It does give me hope that the heist episode will be entertaining.

WOKE ELEMENTS

There’s some cartoon and contrived racism but, in a moment of delicious irony, there is a scene in which Giancarlo’s character is sitting on a couch in a country club while waiting for his wife, and a waspy blond woman pulls her purse closer to herself to protect it from him. It’s meant to make us roll our eyes at her in disgust…but he IS A THIEF! She’s right to protect her valuables from him, even if she’s doing it for the wrong reasons.