Kicking off the 2023 viewing season, Netflix offers viewers a different streaming experience with their newest series, Kaleidoscope. Spanning 25 years, Kaleidoscope follows a crew of masterful thieves and their attempt to crack a seemingly unbreakable vault for the biggest payday in history.
Guarded by the world’s most influential corporate security team and with law enforcement on the case, every episode reveals a piece of an elaborate puzzle of corruption, greed, vengeance, scheming, loyalties, and betrayals. How did the crew of thieves plan it? Who gets away with it, and who can be trusted?
Loosely inspired by the real-life story where seventy billion dollars in bonds went missing in downtown Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy, Kaleidoscope consists of eight episodes spanning from 24 years before the heist to 6 months after.
The compelling crime anthology series takes a non-linear approach to storytelling, building intrigue and suspense uniquely, with Netflix members each having a different immersive viewing experience. Some members may start with specific episodes (like episodes “Yellow or “Green”), then move deeper into their viewing order with varying episodes (“Blue” or “Violet” or “Orange,” followed by “Red” or “Pink”) until the epic “White: The Heist” story finale.
All viewers will eventually see all episodes, but the order in which they watch them will affect their viewpoint on the story, the characters, and the questions and answers at the heart of the heist. How will you experience the colors of Kaleidoscope?
Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito) is among the crew and has spent many years behind bars. However, he still needs to have enough of the world of crime. Undoubtedly, he is already working on his next coup and is determined to plunder the vault of Roger Salas (Rufus Sewell). Roger runs a security company, so it seems impossible to do this. Despite that, there are seven billion compelling reasons to try it.
As Leo knows, getting people on board is essential for this project to be successful. Thus, he assembles a team that consists of Ava Mercer (Paz Vega), Judy (Rosaline Elbay), Bob Goodwin (Jai Courtney) as well as Stan Loomis (Peter Mark Kendall). It is their vision to make the impossible possible with the help of each other. However, several obstacles stand in their way – both within and outside the group.
There are a lot of things to enjoy about Kaleidoscope in a nutshell. You should venture into this show blindly and discuss it with your friends afterward. Why do the characters behave the way they do? What exactly happened? Eric Garcia, responsible for creating the series, had less concern with what the story had to be than how the story was to be told.
When you arrange the individual episodes in their chronological order, as opposed to how they were supposed to be, Kaleidoscope turns out to be not so fascinating if you place them in their chronological order. It is worth mentioning that the episodes continue to lengthen throughout, despite the format. It may be difficult for some viewers to resist the temptation to read the rest of the text after the allure of the concept has evaporated.
Despite this, there are still moments in the middle worth seeing. In terms of the actual robbery, for example, I would say that it is a highlight, especially if you are a fan of exaggerated heist movies like Ocean’s Eleven.
There is also an apparent emotional power in the aforementioned retrospective sequence that tells of an incident that happened 24 years ago. You can watch Kaleidoscope if you enjoy stories of this type since the acting performances are solid to an acceptable level, and everything escalates nicely through the story.
Kaleidoscope is streaming on Netflix now.
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