Government Cheese Review

The archetypal 4 episodes of Government Cheese are present streaming connected Apple TV+. One caller occurrence volition debut each Wednesday done May 28.

It’s 1969, and God wants Hampton Chambers (David Oyelowo) to invent a self-sharpening drill. So sayeth the Lord that His loyal follower shall disrupt and innovate the tract of handheld machinery—or truthful Hampton believes, anyway, having recovered religion portion successful situation for cheque fraud. With crippled points similar this, you tin archer that Apple TV+’s caller bid Government Cheese wants truthful profoundly to beryllium weird. But the amusement ne'er amounts to much than a bundle of affectations, the equivalent of watching idiosyncratic “cut loose” by coming into the bureau with, like, a somewhat louder necktie oregon something.

To get an thought of the code here, representation a crippled of telephone that starts astatine the broader comedies of the Coen brothers – large personalities against a backdrop of screwy Americana, similar Raising Arizona oregon O Brother, Where Art Thou? Somewhere successful the middle, already warped and diluted into semi-recognition, is the Coen karaoke of the Fargo TV series. Government Cheese exists astatine the extremity of the line, visiting mildly wacky circumstances connected a formed of quirky cardboard cutouts.

Hampton, aft all, does not get retired connected parole with lone designs connected a divine drill; he’s besides successful hefty indebtedness to the Prevost brothers, a household of French-Canadian gangsters operating retired of an orangish grove. There are 7 of them. He does not archer his wife, Astoria (Simone Missick), who’s already – and rather understandably – peeved astatine having to rise their teenage sons unsocial during Hampton's three-year imprisonment portion besides pursuing a assemblage degree. Their youngest, Harrison (Jahi Di'Allo Winston), is openly hostile to his father’s return, retreating into an unusual fixation connected indigenous Chumash culture. The oldest, Einstein (Evan Alexander Ellison), is much genial but besides present truly into rod vaulting.

To varying degrees, these details are astatine slightest a small spot funny, and they play retired against a handsome backdrop of pastel colors and manicured suburban lawns (production decorator Warren Alan Young has credits connected respective seasons of Fargo). Every truthful often, you tin adjacent glimpse what the amusement is going for – each Chambers is striving for fulfillment, whether spiritual oregon nonrecreational (or, successful Hampton’s case, both), from the meager manus they’ve been dealt. Hence the title: “government cheese,” successful notation to the processed nutrient fixed to impoverished radical truthful they tin marque thing from what is functionally nothing.

But those glimpses are arsenic bully arsenic it gets with this series, which has lone a tenuous grasp of the characters beyond their surface-level quirks. For a communicative built connected Hampton’s homecoming and his determination to locomotion the righteous path, there’s precious small penetration into what the Chambers household was similar earlier oregon during his incarceration. We don’t get a consciousness of shared past betwixt the family, don’t consciousness the lives they’ve lived. It’s not successful the acting, not successful the different striking acceptable design, and surely not successful the writing, which has everyone declaring their feelings and aspirations to the assorted sounding boards meant to walk for supporting characters.

In 1 episode, Hampton has a heart-to-heart with a unusual pistillate (Sunita Mani) stuck successful a vent. She’s implied to beryllium immoderate benignant of ethereal messenger, mysteriously vanishing erstwhile Hampton looks away. But she’s truly nary antithetic from the other, much earthbound characters, due to the fact that their ain existences each look to statesman and extremity astatine what they tin bash for Hampton. His puerility person and known subordinate Bootsy (Bokeem Woodbine, who you mightiness besides admit from a play of Fargo) simply hands him a car, hoping to lure him backmost to a beingness of transgression but different with nary strings attached. The youngest Prevost brother, Jean-Guy (Louis Cancelmi), offers to cancel Hampton’s indebtedness successful speech for the self-sharpening drill, and past exits the full mediate of the bid portion Hampton thinks connected it.

What truly spoils Government Cheese, though, is conscionable however harmless it manages to beryllium successful its reheated imitation. Here is simply a amusement for anyone who ever wished that the Coens would code down their abrasive weirdos, oregon that Wes Anderson would chill retired with the fussy aesthetics. Hampton doesn’t respond with choler oregon disbelief toward his family’s chilly reception of him – Oyelowo is fixed nary worldly that mightiness endanger our sympathy for him. Even erstwhile he’s much openly conniving, helium operates exclusively astatine a low, dull hum of protagonist likability. Harrison needles him astir each the “Yahweh stuff” (which Hampton prefers to the much ceremonial rubric of “God”), but his newfound religion seldom comes up. Here’s a feline who thinks God has fixed him a mission, yet helium goes for agelong stretches without talking astir it astatine all. He doesn’t proselytize, doesn’t yammer connected astir Yahweh’s plan, doesn’t adjacent corral his kids into going to church.

For a small while, I wondered if this was intentional, an look of however flimsy and self-serving Hampton’s religion is. But the fistful of seemingly divine occurrences successful Government Cheese simply show its deficiency of imagination, grounding immoderate flights of fancy by tagging them with a plausible explanation. No unusual happenings whitethorn simply beryllium arsenic an look of quality and circumstance. The Lord has to beryllium giving Hampton a sign, and the vent woman has to beryllium immoderate ethereal messenger mounting him straight. If Government Cheese won’t instrumentality a accidental connected making america disapprove of Hampton’s actions, wherefore would it inquire america to suspend our disbelief astir his situation, too?