‘The Sticky’ Review: Margo Martindale Shines In Serviceable Heist Comedy

Margo Martindale has been one of Hollywood’s most reliable character actors since the late 1980s. She’s featured in Oscar-winning dramas and gut-busting comedies, playing “aw shucks” proud mamas and ruthless crime bosses, and she’s ubiquitous enough to have been a recurring character on the animated showbiz comedy Bojack Horseman, as herself. In The Sticky, the new heist comedy series on Prime Video, Martindale gets a rare and long-overdue opportunity to play the lead. But, while she certainly holds her own as a disgruntled maple syrup farmer out to make a big score, the material she’s working with is mostly unremarkable. The six-episode debut season of The Sticky is a short stack of pancakes, the sort of meal that fills you up but doesn’t leave a lasting memory—and you probably won’t want seconds.

Set in the maple forests of Quebec, The Sticky finds Martindale’s Ruth Landry in a bitter feud with the Quebec Maple Association, which regulates syrup farming. When a corrupt bureaucrat (Guy Nadon) tries to force her off her farm, Ruth masterminds a plot to steal gallons of sweet revenge from the Association’s strategic reserve. There are material stakes, of course: for Ruth, it’s the stability to take care of her comatose husband. For American gangster Mikey (Chris Diamantopoulos), it’s a score that will get him out from under the thumb of a crime family that exiled him to the Great White North. But it’s security guard Remy (Guillaume Cyr) who’s the most honest about his motivations. He wants a modicum of self-respect after being undervalued by the Maple Association. At their heart, all three simply want to stop feeling like losers. Naturally, their fool-proof plan turns out to be anything but, and the trio has to think fast if they want to make off with the syrup—and their lives.

Martindale gets to stretch her legs a bit as a righteously indignant wrecking ball. She shines in extravagant fits of rage as well as quiet moments of cunning calculation. Like nearly every character in the series, Ruth is motivated by pride, a force that bolsters her resolve but also clouds her judgement. There’s a seed of a really strong dramatic character here, but the constraints of The Sticky’s comedic tone prevent her from really sinking her teeth in, and since she’s often saddled with playing the voice of reason in her gang of misfits, she doesn’t get to be off the wall funny, either.

Consequently, despite finally getting first billing, Martindale is consistently upstaged by Chris Diamantopoulos, another underrated “that guy” actor from a succeeding generation. That’s not a knock against her. This is a comedy, and Diamantopoulos gets the broadest material and runs away with it. The whipping boy of his crime family, Mikey is determined to present himself as high status to his new criminal cohorts, but his instincts are bad and his luck is worse. Watching him try to wriggle out of his messes is delightful.

Being a farcical heist story set in snowy North America, The Sticky naturally draws comparisons to Fargo, whose revival as a TV anthology series has a whopping 70 Emmy nominations over five seasons. In this match-up, The Sticky is hopelessly outclassed. Its characters are less complex, its mysteries are less compelling, and it’s not half as visually interesting. It is, however, much lighter and playful, and lacks the nihilistic bite that Fargo inherited from the Coen Brothers. Not every family is going to want to watch a mean, bloody, eight-hour crime thriller while waiting out the snow over Christmas vacation, but they might enjoy a shorter, sweeter (but still TV-MA) alternative.

The Sticky runs for six half-hour episodes and leaves threads dangling for a potential second season, but like so many streaming series today, it’s hard to escape the feeling that this should have been a self-contained feature film. Season 1 ends at a point that, in a feature film, would signal about another 15 minutes. The idea of squeezing another three hours out of this story is not only unappealing, it’s exhausting. This season of The Sticky passes the streaming-era standard of “good enough that you won’t turn it off,” but will anyone still remember it after the twelve months it’ll take to mount a follow-up?

Critics are as tired of complaining about this phenomena as audiences are of reading it, but the media economy’s shift in goals from “tickets sold” to “hours streamed” has created an industry-wide narrative health crisis. One gets tired of that feeling of stuffed dissatisfaction that comes from a big meal at an unremarkable diner. My belly’s full and my wallet’s not empty, but why don’t I feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth?

‘The Sticky’ begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video on December 6th.