- Network: HBO
- Series Premiere Date: Jun 21, 2015
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Critic Reviews
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The Brink is whip-smart, featuring actors who know how to play comedy. This one’s a joy to watch.
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An explosively funny satirical descendant that can hit home without being even slightly preachy about it. Mostly, though, have fun with both the madcap characters and the notion that one of the Pakistani demands in play is a full membership with the Augusta National Golf Club.
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The dialogue is smart, biting and sporadically funny as it convincingly argues that its strange fiction is truth and turns the wartime stuff of our nightmares into the blackest of comedy.
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Consistently entertaining, if not hysterical, and plotted with care, so that three distinct story lines dovetail nicely.
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The manic Brink can be exhausting and overbroad, but it also has moments that are acutely, if childishly, funny.
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There’s smart plotting at work, and keen observational skills when it comes to showing who’s truly in power, but it takes a squishy stance on the issues at hand, a “nuclear warfare bad” perspective that makes for agreeable comedy but ineffectual satire.
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The show may err toward silliness, but the cast is uniformly good, and every so often a wry jab at American parochialism or some funny throwaway line will catch you by happy surprise.
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Much of it works very well because of the casting and, to some extent, character direction. The pacing is a bit flaccid here and there, but most of the jokes are worth waiting an extra beat for.
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The humor's not nearly as pointed as it is in Veep, but if you like Jack Black being Jack Black, you should like him here, too.
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Black spends too much time hugging with his eyebrows raised, and the writers go for easy jokes. [3 Jul 2015]
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The series keeps generally on the right side of things by virtue of the excellence and exuberance of the performances, which add flesh where needed; by moving fast enough to keep ahead of your second thoughts; and by spreading the ridiculousness around.
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Some of the comedy borders on dark slapstick. Some favors absurdity.
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The series finds its comic stride in the fifth episode and becomes kind of fun. But that’s a long wait, and it’s easy to be discouraged by the way it starts.
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It has its moments of comedy that land, but the entire show, which is going for a Dr. Strangelove vibe, feels off. As political satire, it lacks the bite needed to really work.
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The Brink is just silliness. It takes a while to get used to that, but this broad humor may win over some viewers.
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“Ballers” and “The Brink,” have their moments, neither provides a lot of laughs.
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It tries to deliver a biting geopolitical satire about unconventional warfare with weapons that are depressingly conventional.
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Many of the erratic and seemingly random acting choices fall on inconsistent written characterizations, many fall on stars too big to be wholly steered and many have to be placed on the "Brink" directors.
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[The Brink] uses Black’s panicky jabber-talk style to set the pace for a frantic show that only occasionally slows down enough to be actually funny.
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The Brink's level of satire never really goes beyond "the most obvious jokes you can think of about every possible group of people on the planet," and its political messages essentially boil down to the idea that the end of humanity wouldn't be that cool.
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It’s a depressing waste of talent, although having so many talented people involved at least keeps The Brink watchable. It’s the writing that fails them.
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The show operates at a tone of constant hysteria, which, as justified as that may be, begins to feel exhausting.
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The Brink is a little too stale and disorganized to act as the “Veep” of foreign diplomacy, but it does provoke a chuckle here and there.
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It’s been a while since I’ve seen so much acting, writing, and directing talent, and such top-notch production values, expended on behalf of a show that makes such a weak impression.
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Unfortunately, The Brink feels like a would-be daring political comedy that's lacking in insight and light on laughs.
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The Brink is far more likely to trigger a hasty finger on your TV remote.
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The Brink aims to poke fun at world diplomacy by insisting that almost everyone at the highest levels of power is a fool focused on their basest desires. In the right hands it could be as provocative as the Kubrick film it emulates. But as it stands it would barely pass muster as a back-half sketch on SNL.
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The Brink has no backbone, which happens to be the one thing that satire requires.
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The Brink is a grim would-be comedy grindhouse full of half-baked one-liners propping up an overbaked plot.
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It’s screechingly awful.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 59 out of 79
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Mixed: 13 out of 79
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Negative: 7 out of 79
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Jun 24, 2015
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Jun 22, 2015
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Jul 24, 2015