Title: Landman
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland, Michelle Randolph, Paulina Chávez, Kayla Wallace, Mark Collie, James Jordan
Director/Creator: Taylor Sheridan, Christian Wallace
Rating: 3.5/5
Episodes: 5
This oil industry melodrama set in the boom-towns of West-Texas is about fortune seekers and the world of oil rigs. The series follows roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom that changes the geopolitics of the region.“Landman” is a potent combination of big business, family conflicts and horrific on-the-job accidents.
Landman is an antihero drama replete with cursing, violence, and nudity. We’re introduced to Tommy in a vulnerable spot, being held at gunpoint by a drug cartel enforcer. Tommy, has the ability to talk himself out of the trickiest pickle and does just that.
Midland-based Tommy Norris(Billy Bob Thornton) is the titular Landman, an on-the-ground oil patch manager who works for MTex Oil owned by Fort Worth businessman Monty Miller (Jon Hamm) and his wife Cami (Demi Moore). There’s plentiful drama for Tommy to deal with – he not only negotiates drilling leases with Mexican drug cartels but also does his best to see that widows of burned alive rig workers get compensation. Problems keep cropping up though. His moody college dropout son Cooper (Jacob Lofland),is working on a drilling crew with veteran wildcatters Luis (Emilio Rivera) and Armando (Michael Peña) and even has lovely Ariana (Paulina Chávez) take a shine to him.
Tommy’s 17-year-old daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) who visits during spring break is perpetually titillating in a bikini much to the discomfort of the other old men Dale( James Jordan) and Nathan( Colm Feore) her dad shares a company house with.
Tommy’s ex, Angela(Ali Larter) who left him for a hotel magnate shows up in Midland and is determined to get Tommy back into submission. Rebecca Savage( Kayla Wallace) is the corporate shark flown in from the big city to manage the numerous actionable disasters MTex keeps suffering under the landman’s watch.
The plot is a series of gritty incidents and accidents and it’s loaded with surprises. Landman is designed to intrigue and is more than likely to put a smile on your face.
Taylor Sheridan returns after the super successful run of “Yellowstone” to co-create ‘Landman’ with Texas Monthly journalist Christian Wallace based on his “Boomtown” podcast.
The series is a smart tragic comedy that beats the drum for fossil fuels by counter arguing in favor of the polluting enterprise. It is also an authentic gritty look at the rigors of oil production and the lifestyles of the wealthy thereof. The plots and characters may feel awfully thin, but the actors more than make up for that defect. The female actors seem to having a ball with their respective roles while Billy Bob Thornton reigns supreme with his biting wit, wide Texan drawl and redolent cussing. The sheer charisma of Billy Bob Thornton overcomes most of the deficiencies in this series.