‘The Waterfront’ Could Be a Gripping Crime Story If It Dumped the Soapy Family Drama

Tony Sokol

There is something fishy going on in Havenport, NC. Sheriff Clyde Porter (Michael Gaston) isn’t paying much attention, and an abandoned beached vessel is not declared by the owner of the largest family-owned fishery in the fictional oceanfront town, Harlan Buckley (Holt McCallany). This is calm sailing on “The Waterfront,” Netflix’s newest crime family drama.

The Buckley family is a budding dynasty in North Carolina, having built an empire in their small coastal hometown. Besides a thriving fishery and the sizable fleet, the Buckleys own a restaurant on the tourist-popular waters, run by Harlan’s wife, Belle (Maria Bello). This legitimate business is managed by his daughter Bree (Melissa Benoist), a recovering alcoholic dancing a two-step through the twelve steps and stepping out with Marcus Sanchez (Gerardo Celasco), a DEA agent with a heroin habit, while trying to maintain supervised visits with her son, Diller (Brady Hepner).

The average, slightly inland-living citizens see the Buckleys like a local Kennedy family. Harlan, the respected and revered third generation patriarch is introduced in a scene where he asks his mistress to call his wife because he’s suffering another heart attack, but only after calling 911. Harlan is violently upset to learn one of his fishing boats is used to smuggle drugs, with fatal collateral damage; but the audience learns Harlan has a history with such activities. The Columbian drug dealers he did business with in his younger years were better dressed, and far more gentlemanly than the current operators, Harlan reminisces. This enhances the “Southern Kennedy” vibe of wealth inherited from inherent crime of old money.

“The Waterfront” begins with a customary deal gone bad, captured as an off-hour, but relatively routine, job of unloading crates of cocaine, well-sealed to thwart drug enforcement testing. Even before a beached ship attracts the unwavering attention of the DEA, the Buckley business faces bankruptcy, and possible extinction. Harlan’s first heart attack made him reluctantly contemplate turning things over to his son, Cane (Jake Weary). The instigator of the botched handoff, Cane gets by through too many learning curves, and is only almost good enough to keep up. He is almost good enough a husband to Peyton (Danielle Campbell), who sees through the myriad of lies being spun.

The locals distrust the Buckleys. All Buckleys keep one eye over their shoulder at everyone, at all times. Anyone in a crowd could be a DEA agent, or worse: a screwdriver-wielding business negotiator calmly explaining a missed but lucrative opportunity. No one is scrutinized with as much suspicion as Shawn West (Rafael L. Silva), the new bartender from Galveston, who doesn’t know how to mix a Zombie.

Belle, ever the backroom social mover, is a political enabler: “You know what Cane’s up against. Overfished waters, environmental quotas, gas prices.” All perennial items on any stump speech by the sea. Peyton is the only thing holding Cane back from becoming his father. Cane is reluctant about every step into shipping drugs, even though the idea was meant to wipe out the family’s debts in two or three runs. His only sin is not knowing family history.

Nautical crimes boast a grand history, from piracy to the war saboteurs. During prohibition gangsters loaded illegal alcohol offshore, aiming for international waters, if possible. The contraband handoffs in “The Waterfront” carry prison life sentences today, yet are handled like workaday errands, a union Longshoreman’s job, until guns are pulled. The series would benefit from more of the operational side of smuggling, and less on the soapy tide slipping up trade. The acting performances are uniformly good, if peppered with subtle melodramatic affectations to match romantic plot contrivances like Cane’s ex-flame and current gummy-buddy, Jenna Tate (Humberly González), currently a local journalist covering uninspiring work.

“The Waterfront” feels like an attempt to recreate the interior angst of “Ozark” through the contemplative deliberation of “Yellowstone,” but at high-speed, and with more octane. This becomes literal when Peyton is doused, and nearly set ablaze in a cautionary white-knuckler. Each episode supplies blood and guts of gritty crime drama. One particularly effective scene even chums the water for more.

This series is filled with cinematically framed scenes of the natural mural of oceanic backgrounds, all of which are more universal than location-specific to coastal North Carolina. The camera work also deftly explores the daytime horrors of large craft. Docks and ship hulls are very good places for mysterious shadows and intrigue suspense. Anything could be behind a corner or dangling rope.

The entire trajectory of “The Waterfront” changes in the fourth episode. Allegiances shift, which furnishes a change of scenery. A self-sustaining operation is hidden among the corn fields, and characters, like Topher Grace as a pathologically unassuming Mr. Big named Grady, become more colorful. Sadly, this is also where things begin to become unnaturally familiar to the arcs of similar stories.

“The Waterfront” doesn’t take itself very seriously. This is a mixed bag because some of the over-the-top scenarios, reactions, and collective aftermaths are ludicrously funny, while some of the dynastic soap opera clichés are merely ridiculous. While not the top form in its genre, “The Waterfront” is worth a taste. You might come back for more, but it’s easy to kick.

“The Waterfront” begins streaming June 19 on Netflix.