'Culprits' is a lot of fun. Based on a book (which seems to be a series of short stories written by different authors, sort of exquisite corpse style), the story follows a group of people 'with very particular sets of skills' (to paraphrase Liam Neeson) who have gone their separate ways after executing a heist, only to find that someone is hunting them down and killing them for an unspecified reason (though, really, it's shouldn't be *that* hard to figure out why).
Told in a jumbled, flash-back and forth narrative, the main focus is on Nathan Stewart-Jarrett's character who, post-heist, has relocated from London to Oregon, settled down with a nice guy who has two cute kids, and is attempting to put his past behind him. At this point let me say that, Stewart-Jarrett's performance here is stellar and, by itself, would justify watching the show.
As the episodes progress, and the body count rises, more and more angles (plot-wise and visually) are revealed through three time frames, and the show does a pretty good job of juggling all this information (though a few balls do get dropped) while maintaining a propulsive vibe that almost never slows down and keeps you wanting to find out what happens next.
I also wanted to call out the cinematography joins the disappointingly few (but thankfully increasing) number of films that has paid careful attention to properly lighting its Black actors--it feels more than a little ridiculous that it even needs to be mentioned, but when it is done properly, as here, it should be praised.
Anyway, it's an energetically made, well-photographed, and slickly produced crime story with a wonderful lead performance. I enjoyed myself very much.
