Prolific series and movie creator Taylor Sheridan’s latest project, Landman (which premiered concurrently with the latest season of his mega-hit series Yellowstone this past weekend), once again focuses on a way of life that’s known for being rough and rugged. It’s set in a place where shady dealings, tough talk, open bullying, exploitation, gaudy displays of wealth, and violence are all part of the job. It sounds tailor made for Taylor, but in terms of execution and tone, Landman is a stunning miscalculation that’s too off-putting and off-kilter to be entertaining. In spite of pulling off the masterstroke of casting Billy Bob Thornton as a cunning, cutting, resourceful, and foul mouthed oil company manager, Landman manages to be irksome, ridiculous, and plodding in ways that make Sheridan’s latest hard to take seriously.
Thornton plays Tommy Norris, a high ranking stooge working for M-Tex Oil in the fields just outside of Odessa, Texas (which means this is a homecoming of sorts for Thornton, following his turn as the coach in the film version of Friday Night Lights, which also took place here and gets a nice shout out by Sheridan). Tommy is wiry, stretched thin, constantly in motion, and has no time for anyone’s bullshit. His job is to secure land rights and oversee the employees, the latter of which proves to the the harder part of his day. His family life is a mess. He has a perpetually horny ex-wife (Ali Larter) who seemingly wants to get back together despite being remarried, a perpetually horny teenage daughter (Michelle Randolph) who causes all the horny old men around him to get distracted by her visits, and a downtrodden, dorky son (Jacob Loflund) who drops out of college and insists on following in the family business. Tommy’s biggest issues at the moment involve dealing with a cartel that operates out of some of the company’s lands, and an impending negligence lawsuit that leaves his boss (Jon Hamm) in need of a fall guy.
It doesn’t take long for Sheridan (who writes and directs the first couple of instalments) to show viewers the in-your-face nature of Landman. The oil fields of West Texas aren’t known for social politeness or political correctness, and Sheridan makes it known that this deep dive into roughneck culture won’t be for the squeamish or easily offended. This desire to leave viewers feeling dirty about what they’re watching is one of the biggest draws of Landman, which initially comes across as an intriguing provocation; a romanticization of greed and machismo set against the backdrop of an necessary, but evil industry that literally fuels capitalism in America and around the world. When Tommy tells a young lawyer under his employ (Kayla Wallace) that she should essentially be thanking him for keeping the world afloat, it hits like an elbow to the face, regardless of the one sided “truth” of it all. Some of the toughest and most tragic moments in Landman ring loudest and truest, so that’s not the problem here.
Neither is the commanding and thoroughly watchable performance being turned in by Thornton, who is custom made for this particular kind of tough guy. Tommy never seems like the type of person who would come to blows with an aggressor, but he could reduce them to a pile of smouldering ashes with just a few lines of dialogue and deductive reasoning. He’s quick witted, darkly comedic, and oozes with charisma and confidence. Although Landman always portrays Tommy as being on the back foot when it comes to his current work and home situation, Thornton plays the character as someone who takes their licks in stride and keeps barrelling forward, because it’s all they know how to do. Sheridan’s material continues to dig some deep plot wells that it increasingly can’t climb out of, but Thornton is always up to the challenge.
The biggest problem with Landman is that it is so over-cranked, unsubtle, and unintentionally campy that it makes Sheridan’s other series exploits seem tame and restrained in comparison. While the subject matter and setting are serious, there’s nothing else about Landman that feels authentic and truthful, which is surprising given that Sheridan co-created this with the help of journalist and Boomtown podcaster Christian Wallace, who has studied this lifestyle in great detail. Landman is big on momentum and short on logical plotting, pacing, and character. So far into the series (with only the first five episodes being available for review) Tommy is far and away the most interesting character, but he doesn’t have an arc at all.
Everyone else fares far worse, with other cast members forced into playing a bunch of cliches and calling it a day. Hamm is shockingly lifeless in a role he could play in his sleep, and the casting of Demi Moore as the boss’ wife is inspired, but goes nowhere. Colm Feore plays Tommy’s legal counsel and roommate, but he’s really only good for looking worried and horny, often at the same time. Investing in these characters proves to be impossible because some of these situations and scenarios are laughable, and the viewer knows so little about these people that their plights are baffling and inorganic. A show based around a profession where all but the person at the very top of the ladder are exploited and abused for their labour shouldn’t make me feel like I don’t care about any of these people.
The women of Landman fare far worse than their male counterparts, especially Randolph and Larter, the latter of whom delivers a terminally annoying performance as a middle aged woman who still acts like a party girl in her twenties. They try to build sympathy for these characters, but they do so by always playing them as sex kittens there who actually yearn to be used and drooled over, and their champagne problems take up far too much oxygen, adding more suds to an already soapy premise. Paulina Chávez gives a fine performance as a widow trying to keep her family together in the wake of a tragedy Tommy’s son has been unfairly blamed for, but instead of showing her as strong and capable, Sheridan and Wallace turn her into just another lost young woman in need of saving. After a rocky start with her character, Kayla Wallace ends up fairing the best – mostly because her delivery of a key speech during a deposition is admittedly badass – but the character keeps subtly reverting back to becoming another potential conquest in Tommy’s love life. Roughnecks are predominantly male in nature, but Landman’s portrayal of women is positively stuck in the stone age.
Landman is trying too hard to provoke a reaction, while simultaneously delivering a large scale spectacle of trash television. It doesn’t care about the sensitivities of the viewer, which is oddly fine, but in the same way, it doesn’t even care about its own sense of authenticity. The prolific Sheridan’s formula of taking a well-to-do, blue collar, generationally indebted profession and turning it into a sprawling, politically minded soap opera backfires on him here. It’s still early days for Landman, but everything is so mangled and ill formed thus far that pulling something together that ultimately works could take an act of God. If not for Thornton and some outstandingly captured Texas scenery, Landman would be exceptionally tough to sit through and even harder to remain invested in.
New episodes of Landman premiere on Paramount+ every Sunday.
