MIA review – the creator of Ozark’s new drama is as subtle as being mauled by a 12ft alligator

This Florida-set revenge thriller swings between being boring and ludicrous. It’s riddled with awkward dialogue and convenient plotting

Miami, Florida is the US at its extreme. Ostentatious wealth is everywhere, some legal, some very illegal, most of it in a grey area between the two. All of it is propped up by the hard work and cherished dreams of immigrants, people whose fight for a better life is getting harder – those few who make it to the top having to decide if, now they are no longer being exploited, they are willing to exploit others.

All that provides the serious subtext for MIA, a new drama created by Bill Dubuque (Ozark). But any thoughtful treatment of the immigrant experience it might have to offer is overwhelmed by the sheer silliness of the main story, a revenge thriller starring Shannon Gisela as Etta Tiger Jonze, a woman in her early 20s whose entire family is slaughtered by a drug cartel. Raging with grief and with nothing to lose, Etta restarts from zero, lying low in Miami’s Haitian community while plotting to kill precisely 12 gangsters: the bad guys she witnessed murdering her loved ones.