The Company You Keep (2023)

“The Company You Keep” has a strong start and the elements of a successful show: stellar chemistry between its leading stars, a set-up ripe for plenty of adventure, downright festive weekly cons, and a beautiful cast that knows how to act.

Ventimiglia and Kim do have remarkable on screen chemistry. ... I’m curious enough about this fairly ambitious network television drama to keep the show company and find out.

“The Company You Keep” isn’t trying to break new ground. But it achieves its purpose as escapist Sunday night fare.

"Company" seems familiar enough to draw you in, but it's not a knockoff of all the other shows you've seen before. The series may have just the right mix of romantic, sultry drama and thrilling capers to go the distance.

Likable.

The conflict between obligations to loved ones and the desire to get out of the game creates tension and interest in the show’s first two episodes, as does genuine chemistry with co-star Catherine Haena Kim. ... The knots in Charlie’s stories are the stuff of pulp novels or — just as good — lightly pleasurable serial TV.

The Company You Keep eschews this opportunity for tension or real sparks in favor of a straightforward good-versus-evil tale and easy likeability. As a crime show that ardently refuses to get its hands dirty, it can’t help but come off as a one-dimensional photocopy of better films and TV shows.

There’s a lot of exposition that still has to be presented. But the show that this settles into being is decent or, as I keep saying, has the potential to be decent, since I’ve only seen 20 minutes of it.

The first two episodes feel like a missed opportunity, given the cast. But what we’re hoping is that things will get better as its first season goes along, and there’s enough there to keep us interested while hoping it gets better.

Milo Ventimiglia is all about family again in The Company You Keep, only this time, it’s a family of thieves, and the romance he’s trying to balance is, unknowingly, with a CIA agent. Adapted from a South Korean show, the ABC series aims higher than most broadcast dramas, but the criminal-cop dynamic feels like a concept with, at best, a built-in expiration date.

Glimmers of wit surface intermittently, lending some hope to a lightweight original in need of more attitude, but the series hues too closely to its straight-laced star.