Bad Monkey Review: Vince Vaughn Is at His Wise-Ass Best in Apple TV+’s Breezy Florida Noir

Vince Vaughn knows who he is by now. He excels at playing the motormouthed scamp, a role he’s perfected over the past three decades in big-screen comedies like Swingers and Wedding Crashers . (The less said about his ill-advised detour to play a somber crime boss in the misfire that was Season 2 of True Detective , the better.) He’s back in his wheelhouse here, and in fine form, as the star of the new Apple TV+ mystery comedy Bad Monkey , premiering this Wednesday. (I’ve seen the first three episodes.) It’s a sleazy, sweaty Florida noir with a cast full of colorful characters and a wickedly dark sense of humor, and it feels like it was tailormade to play to Vaughn’s unique strengths as a tongue-in-cheek rascal of a leading man.

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Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, a laid-back cop in the Florida Keys who gets demoted to food inspector while serving a suspension. He’d prefer to spend his free time sipping beer and gazing out at the water, but he finds himself getting pulled into a mystery when a fisherman discovers a severed human arm… with the middle finger extended. (Probably just rigor mortis.) As Yancy delves deeper into the case, he encounters a wide array of local oddballs — and dodges a few bullets, too — in order to find out how exactly that arm ended up in the water.

Showrunner and Ted Lasso veteran Bill Lawrence adapts the Carl Hiaasen novel with a loose, chaotic energy, reveling in the bizarre #FloridaMan vibes of the Sunshine State. With its breezy, playful tone, Bad Monkey captures the spirit of a few of our favorite detective comedies. Vaughn’s Yancy delivers a barrage of sharp one-liners in the style of Fletch , maintaining a detached cool no matter how dangerous the case gets. (It’s unclear how many of the quips are just Vaughn riffing off-script, but either way, it works.) Plus, a raspy-voiced narrator keeps us apprised of all the twists and turns, a la The Big Lebowski .

Vaughn is great enough on his own, but Bad Monkey also backs him up with a rich ensemble of memorable eccentrics. Meredith Hagner — so great at playing dumb on Search Party — is a riot as the much younger grieving widow, joined by Michelle Monaghan as an erratic old flame of Yancy’s, Rob Delaney as a heartless resort developer and Zach Braff as a pill-popping doctor. Plus, Jodie Turner-Smith is positively entrancing as a voodoo priestess whose ancient curses might flip this entire story on its head. (And yes, there is a monkey. How bad he is, though, is up to the viewer to decide.)

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Bad Monkey’ s various plot threads don’t always tie together neatly (even though the narrator assures us they will), but they’re all still intriguing in their own way. And Vaughn’s winning lead performance holds the whole thing together. He even adds a dash of romance to the mix, striking up some flirty banter with local coroner Rosa, played by Natalie Martinez. If Vaughn’s usual wise-ass routine isn’t your cup of tea, then fair enough: Bad Monkey might not be worth the mileage. But if you like the idea of him at the helm of a Fletch -like mystery with a few twists and a few laughs?  Your paradise awaits.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Vince Vaughn is in his element as a fast-talking detective in Apple TV+’s engagingly weird mystery comedy Bad Monkey .

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