Sony's Crackle streaming service may be best known, if at all, as a place to view the Seth Rogen movie "The Interview" for free in the chaotic aftermath of the Sony hack of 2014.
That just might start to change with the original, 10-episode series "StartUp," a fast-paced and engrossing tech thriller that, if it were an airport-bookstore paperback, would be called a page turner.
Though set in a world of digital dreamers and venture capitalists, it sets itself apart from similarly themed series like "Halt and Catch Fire" or "Silicon Valley" by taking place in a city that's about as far from Northern California as possible and still be in the same country: Miami.
That means "StartUp" pulses with a cultural beat that gives it a distinctive edge.
Otmara Marrero ("Graceland") is Izzy Morales, an ambitious, young Cuban-American whiz who's struggling to launch her startup, GenCoin, supposedly a safer, better twist on the virtual currency Bitcoin. Still, everyone on Brickell Avenue, Miami's palm-lined Wall Street, turns her down.
Well, everybody except for Nick Talman (Adam Brody), a hotshot financier who _ thanks to his criminal dad with whom he has a stormy relationship _ has millions of dollars in dirty money he needs to hide. What better way than to sink it in a startup?
The problem is that some of that money is owed to Ronald Dacey (Edi Gathegi, "Blacklist"), a family man and gangster in the hard-pressed Little Haiti neighborhood looking to ease himself out of the violence and anarchy of his surroundings.
At first, he just wants his money back _ and threatens deadly consequences if that doesn't happen _ but then he realizes GenCoin just might be his ticket, too. And he might be able to persuade some of his "associates" to invest as well.
What has Izzy, a Stanford grad and wannabe Mark Zuckerberg, gotten herself into?
After all, circling like a shark in a shirt and tie is troubled and ruthless FBI agent Phil Rask (Martin Freeman) who, while investigating Nick's father, discovers a thread that just might unravel all of GenCoin's grand plans.
That is if Rask's many secrets and self-sabotaging ways with women don't bring him down first.
The cast is solid, with Freeman continuing to distance himself from the role as the heroic Bilbo Baggins in "The Hobbit" while an excellent Gathegi brings both menace and tough-love fatherly heart to what could have been a one-dimensional character.
What's most refreshing about "StartUp" is that while it delivers some of the cliche sand-and-sea Miami that viewers expect, it expands upon that portrait by including gritty Little Haiti and Hialeah, the inland suburb with the largest Cuban-American population in the country, where Izzy lives with her boisterous but loving family members, who have little idea what she's up to. (Though it would be welcome to see a side of Little Haiti on screen that didn't involve gangs and guns.)
"StartUp" may not have the political resonance of "House of Cards," the music of "The Get Down," or the nostalgic charm of "Stranger Things," but it's a streaming series that, as far as Crackle is concerned, should definitely put "The Interview" in the rear view.
