Netflix’s Untamed: A Beautiful, yet Familiar, Ride with Eric Bana at the Helm

He’s not an actor who demands your affection as he doesn’t push for it like others do. Instead, he simmers. In Chopper, he was volatile and magnetic; in Hulk, he was surprisingly subdued amid the CGI spectacle; and in Special Correspondents, he managed to stretch into dry satire without losing that coiled intensity. Here, he carries Untamed with gravity that never slips into overstatement.

The series follows the contours of many modern thrillers. There’s a dead body/missing person. A patch of wilderness. Secrets buried just beneath the surface. We’ve seen this all before (we traced it across Top of the Lake, The Outsider, and countless others) but Untamed redraws the terrain with striking visuals. The landscape is practically a character: sweeping aerial shots of rugged terrain, mist lifting off wet stone, long shadows bleeding into dusk. It’s the kind of setting that suggests old sins and stubborn ghosts, and the cinematographers clearly understand the power of restraint. Scenes linger. Colours mute. Even the silences feels deliberate.

Still, for all its atmospheric strength, the plot remains too comfortable with its genre roots. What begins with an intriguing death unravels into a sequence of predictable revelations. There are few real shocks, and several characters exist more as story devices than living, breathing people. Yet it manages to remain watchable, largely because of the cast.

Chief among pleasant surprises is Lily Santiago. A relative newcomer, she plays her role with a clarity and presence that avoids the usual greenhorn tics. I skipped La Bea (its premise felt like homework) but her work here makes me wonder a little if  I missed something. She brings warmth without naivety, and when the script stumbles into melodrama, she grounds it with quiet conviction. You sense she could be around for a while.

The show also benefits from its resistance to over-scoring. This is particularly effective in moments where characters are alone, trying to navigate their own grief or confusion. The editing, too, respects the viewer’s patience. It doesn’t cut frantically. It allows space for tension to build naturally, scene by scene.

Bana’s character, worn down but not broken, has a past that the series initially hints at rather than overexploits. That approach is welcome. There’s a temptation in modern series-making to explain every scar, to account for every shadow. Untamed mostly resists that urge, letting Bana's performance do the heavy lifting.

That said, Untamed never quite escapes its own template. There’s a sense that we’ve been here before, just with different faces and slightly different weather. The story beats are too familiar, and by the final episode, one is left wanting something more ambiguous, more unresolved. Not because ambiguity is inherently better, but because the show feels at its best when it trusts the mood, the image, the gesture and not the twist.

So, is Untamed essential viewing? Not quite. But it is beautifully made, competently acted, and occasionally even stirring. It offers the comfort of recognition, which is both its strength and its limitation. For those who enjoy the slow simmer of rural mystery, it’s a fine way to spend a few evenings. Just don’t expect to be thrown off course.