Franklin Review
Director: Hussein Al Menibawi,
Date Created: 2025-05-15 23:55
1.5
Franklin Review: Directed by Hussein Al Menibawi, this Lebanese crime thriller tries to mix family drama, counterfeit money and action into one tense story. It stars Daniella Rahme, Mohamad Al-Ahmad, Toni Issa, Pierre Dagher, Youssef Haddad, Georges Chalhoub, Fayez Kazak and others. The show consists of six episodes, each around 50 minutes long.
The story is about Adam, who is a professional counterfeiter and goes to extreme lengths to save the life of his dying daughter. while the concept might be thrilling, the series itself is confusing and, at times, frustrating to have to watch.
Franklin Review
I have to admit, I went in with high hopes for seeing Franklin on Netflix. I thought it would be a deeply emotional crime story full of action. But the story does get mired in the increasingly absurdity of its web. The timeline is a jumble. The show is populated with characters introduced with little in the way of a backstory, and the mystery deepens until you’re left with more questions than answers.
The biggest problem is the way the plot is told. The writers seem to assume that the audience will follow every twist, but in fact it just appears disorganised. One second, we’re seeing Adam’s childhood trauma, and the next, we’re in a tense hostage situation without much initial sense of how we landed in one. Franklin the series has too much on its mind to do anything well.
I actually liked the idea of Adam being a complex anti-hero, a father trying to do the wrong things for the right reasons. But unfortunately, the show never allows us to spend enough time with him to really get to know or care about him. His choices are rushed, and we’re given little insight into what makes this man tick beyond his daughter’s illness.
Yulia, who is Adam’s ex-lover and ex-collaborator in crime, actually might have made for an interesting female lead. But she mostly functions as a plot device, not a flesh-and-blood character. Even Zein, Adam’s brother, who has since become a police officer, feels more like a side character than the kind of figure who himself fuels a story.
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In other words, Franklin on Netflix has a talented cast, but the script doesn’t allow them to show their full potential. The emotional beats were often empty. I didn’t feel connected to the people involved.
One thing I will say is that Netflix’s Franklin does look good. The locations are excellent, the camera does a great job, and the general ambience is perfect. The dark imagery and moody music suit the crime thriller genre perfectly. But strong visuals can take you only so far. Lacking a tight script, the show ends up with little more than style.
It reminded me of a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces are missing. You keep waiting for the story to take shape, for everything to snap into place, though it never quite does. Even the ending was kind of a big disappointment. It was action-packed, yes, but the emotions didn’t land because the build-up of the story wasn’t done right.
If I had to pick one thing I liked, it would be the concept behind Adam’s love for his daughter. Though his actions were illegal and reckless, the motive was one many parents can relate to, he just wanted to save her life. There is one scene toward the end when Adam shuts down a hospital to get heart surgery for his daughter. It was visceral and, at last, it made me feel something. But by then it was too late to care, because the show hadn’t properly sown that emotional connection in the story leading up to the reveal.
Summing Up
In the end, the Lebanese crime thriller Franklin left me with the sensation of a rough draft of a show that could be great. The nonsensical story, underdeveloped characters and emotional emptiness leave me with little reason to suggest it. Though I like crime thrillers and family stories, with this show, I was feeling like I was watching in order to discover what’s happening, not to actually watch it.
Franklin 2025 is now streaming on Netflix.
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