Harlan Coben thrillers have been popular, and prolific, properties for Netflix adaptations. This year alone has seen three series based on the mystery novels and thrillers of the award-winning writer, with "Missing You," "Just One Look" and, most recently, "Caught," which dropped on the streamer on Thursday, March 26.
Those recent titles join fellow Harlan Coben shows on Netflix, including "Fool Me Once," "The Innocent" and "The Stranger," but "Caught" stands out from the bookish bunch because it's the author's first Latin American adaptation.
Directed by Miguel Cohan ("Blood Will Tell") and Hernán Goldfrid ("The Bronze Garden") and starring Soledad Villamil, Juan Minujín and Alberto Ammann, the Argentina-set six-part series has already proven popular with Netflix users, with the missing-person thriller cracking the list of Netflix top 10 shows.
But based on the reviews, it doesn't seem like critics are sharing audience enthusiasm — here's what they're saying about the new Netflix hit.
What is 'Caught' about?
Soledad Villamil ("Goyo") stars as Ema Garay, a revered reporter in Bariloche, Argentina, who has been gaining visibility online by catching criminals who tend to evade justice.
Both her personal and professional life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Leo Mercer ("Narcos" star Alberto Ammann), a respected social worker who runs a foundation for teens in the community but ends up being the prime suspect in Ema's investigation into the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl (Carmela Rivero), who had been in contact with a mysterious older man.
As she searches for the truth about what happened to that girl, Ema is forced to confront her own demons.
What are critics saying about 'Caught' on Netflix?
As of press time, "Caught" has a pretty woeful 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with only a handful of write-ups from professional critics.
At Decider, Joel Keller acknowledges that Coben diehards will appreciate that the latest Netflix series “exhibits the same twisting, turning story as most of the other Coben adaptations” but that those twists don’t always translate onscreen.
“'Caught' is a Coben adaptation that gives its twists without much in the way of setup or context, so they seem to come out of nowhere, while the presence of other people in the story remains mysterious,” Keller writes.
Jonathan Wilson over at Ready Set Cut has similar misgivings about the show, saying that while it “operates according to the typical Harlan Coben playbook,” the subject matter is “somehow even bleaker than usual.”
In his two-star review of “Caught,” Wilson wonders if we’ve simply hit Coben overload: “It’s just coming so close to the last two [Coben adaptations] that it feels a bit stale before it even has a chance to get going, and isn’t especially impressive even after.”
And if it’s a riveting crime story about teenagers that you’re looking for, posits Pramit Chatterjee over at Digital Mafia Talkies, you’re better off clicking on the recent Netflix “Adolescence” instead of “Caught.”
“Instead of using all the secondary and tertiary elements to amplify that topic, the [adaptors] water it down, thereby robbing such an important topic of all its potential,” Chatterjee writes. “At this stage, it’s pointless to expect anything from Harlan Coben, his fans, and his Netflix adaptations. They are not going to improve. They’ll probably get worse.”
What do you think: Will you give it a watch despite what the critics are saying?
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