Big Mistakes (2026) * * *

 

(Netflix series)

Starring:  Dan Levy, Taylor Ortega, Laurie Metcalf, Elizabeth Perkins, Abby Quinn, Boran Kuzum, Mark Ivanir

Big Mistakes, like Ozark, connects its ordinary people with ruthless mobsters and find themselves unable to break free.  It's a comedy, though, and that takes the edge off somewhat, but these folks are trapped in a criminal underworld following a petty crime against the sort of people who don't like to be stolen from.  

In Ozark, Jason Bateman's Marty Byrde stole money from a cartel.  His penance in exchange for his life was to work for the cartel laundering their money through various means in the Ozark Mountains.  If he can't do it, the penalty is death, although it was amazing how often Marty and his family were able to avoid this consequence.  In Big Mistakes, Morgan (Ortega) steals a necklace from a store operated by Yusuf (Kuzum) she gives to her dying grandmother to wear at her funeral.  Yusuf soon shows up with a gun demanding the necklace back.  Morgan's brother Nicky (Levy), who is the pastor at the local church, assists Morgan so they don't wind up dead.  Morgan and Nicky are unable to steal the necklace from the grandmother's body prior to the casket being buried, so it looks like a night of shoveling for the two bickering siblings.

They retrieve the necklace, return it to Yusuf's boss Ivan (Ivanir), and expect that their servitude to the mob is complete.  Not so fast.  They are assigned burner phones and are expected to be available at a moment's notice for whatever job the mob needs them to do.  Nicky is far more panicked about this than Morgan, mostly because he's a pastor and supposed to be a man of God.  How would it look for the pastor to be in the mob's pocket?  You would think a comic tone would undermine the danger Nicky and Morgan, plus their mother Linda (Metcalf) who is running for town council, are in, but the stakes still remain pretty high.  

Big Mistakes is briskly paced and sometimes slapstick, with Levy having a ball nearly hyperventilating at the trouble he finds himself in.  Morgan appears to like this type of drama as an antidote to her otherwise boring life.  Levy and Ortega play well off each other.  While it takes an episode or two to catch its rhythm, Big Mistakes turns out to have enough twists to be worth the sometimes bumpy ride.