,” based on the Korean series “My Fellow Citizens,” Ventimiglia plays a con artist, but one who’s utterly committed to his parents and adult sister . The conflict between obligations to loved ones and the desire to get out of the game creates tension and interest in the show’s first two episodes, as does genuine chemistry with co-star Catherine Haena Kim.
It’s less a critique than a simple description of the network-drama form to note that the relationship between the two leads is a tidy double game. Meeting by chance, Ventimiglia’s Charlie and Kim’s Emma share a night of intimacy during which they conceal their true identities: He’s a professional liar, and in a sense, so is she. Emma is an undercover CIA operative, currently assigned to root out the criminal mastermind who owns Charlie’s family’s debts and is making them miserable.
With this premise established, there’s room to explore the relationship, and outside it. Some of the writing of Emma’s and Charlie’s dialogue leans painfully hard on the fact that they’re at once intrigued by one another and lying through their teeth, as when she admits, “With you, there is no hiding. … Sometimes it feels like you can see through me.” There’s dramatic irony, and then there’s elbowing the audience in the ribs so hard you may leave a bruise.
This trio’s work with Ventimiglia anchors the sprightlier half of “The Company You Keep.” Charlie and his folks don’t run cons together simply as a way to leverage their talents to make money — they are in it, in part, for love of the game.
And it’s a color that looks good on Ventimiglia, for whom a certain husky-voiced stoicism can be a crutch as much as it is a defining trait. He certainly seems to be having fun, which, as a performer, he’s earned after what was likely a creatively rewarding but emotionally wrenching journey through family tragedy “This Is Us.
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