The Sticky

 The Coen brothers original Fargo, a film released in 1996, is the most influential movie made in the last quarter century.  There have been versions of the movie, at least with regard to its distinctive esthetic and regional allusions, produced as long-format TV series (the FX show of the same name) and copies, either more or less remote, set in a variety of locations -- a good example is the mini-series Dark Winds, made for cable, that transfers the movie's themes and quirky characters to the Navajo Indian reservation in the  Four Corners.  The characteristic of Fargo knock-offs is an unusual, typically rural or small-town setting for the action featuring eccentric characters involved in an improbably brutal crime drama -- Fargo was closely observed, established many characters typical to the genre (unassuming female cops, venal businessmen, and savage gangsters) interacting in scenes with comedic undertones.  These kinds of crime shows derive their energy from the dramatic contrast between small-town rural values and the vicious conduct demonstrated by the criminals scheming to achieve their nefarious goals.  This contrast is, often, presented as absurd, a comedy of errors with existential implications -- generally, the moral of these shows is that there is something both corrupt and righteous in the ethical codes controlling small towns.  The crooked timber of humanity is readily tempted, but, in the end, the arc of the moral universe tends toward justice -- the bad guys may triumph in the short run but ultimately receive their just deserts.  The Sticky, a six-part Coen Brothers-influenced heist show set in rural Quebec departs from this formula in only one respect, the program's amoral and idiosyncratic ending.

Everything about The Sticky can be mapped onto the Coen brothers' crime film template.  Instead of Minnesota, the movie takes place in wintry Quebec.  There is snow on the ground.  The characters speak in a lilting Quebecois patois that is similar to the broad Minnesota accent employed in Fargo and its TV derivatives.  The show involves an improbable heist -- in this case, the theft of maple syrup, a very expensive commodity that is warehoused in a facility in rural Quebec, seemingly sixty miles or so from Montreal.  There is a mock-serious title both claiming and denying fidelity to the events of a regionally famous real crime committed in similar circumstances.  Corrupt and greedy businessmen abound, nasty people willing to betray their own kin for the sake of a quick buck.  (Fargo was populated with crooked businessmen of seeming rectitude -- for instance, the car dealer who plots a kidnapping; in The Sticky, this role is assumed by a cruel and greedy businessman who directs the activities of the Association, a cooperative where the maple syrup is stored in big barrels.  The plot involves, at least, three competing forces -- small-town rural cops, professional mobsters associated with organized crime, and hapless local rubes involved in planning the heist.  The encounters between these forces are violent and brutish -- people get beaten to death with baseball bats, arson, murders and assassinations are planned and attempted, and characters sustain all sort of awful, bloody injuries.  In The Sticky, the Francis McDormand role -- that is, the doughty female protagonist -- is played by Margo Martindale:  she engineers the heist with the help of some local bumpkins.  Francis McDormand was pregnant in Fargo; Margo Martindale's character has a husband in a coma whose condition prompts her venture into crime.  Pop songs, often presented in unusual formats (for instance, crooned in French Canadian) provide the score for the action -- this kind of soundtrack is also a Coen brothers' staple.  

This stuff is all amusing if derivative.  But The Sticky doesn't waste your time -- it's over in six episodes each about a half-hour long.  Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the show's producer and shows up on screen late in the program.  She has adopted an interesting approach to the roles that she plays:  no longer able to persuasively play glamor girl roles, Curtis now seems to specialize in parts that require her to look dowdy, frumpy, or downright hideous -- she makes a final appearance in The Sticky seriously disfigured, thereby setting up a sequel to the show.  The Sticky is diverting and has an ending that deviates a bit from the formula.  It's mildly entertaining and well-made, but there's not a lot to see here.