On Max streaming service, ‘Full Circle,’ a new series by Steven Soderbergh, a living classic and one of the most versatile American directors, has premiered. Our review of a noir about rich white people and the Guyanese mafia.

Mrs. Mahabir (Carol Pounder), head of the Guyanese (a small country in South America) mafia in New York, faces another tragedy – her son dies. Instead of taking revenge on the offenders and killing Mr. Chang (the culprit, head of the Asian mafia), the woman travels to Guyana and summons an expert in local lore. He explains that the Mahabir family is under a curse, and to lift it, they must break the vicious circle of suffering.

It soon becomes clear that to live happily, they need to kidnap and presumably kill the grandson of popular chef and TV star Chef Jeff (Dennis Quaid, a beloved actor from our favorite films – from ‘Dragonheart’ to ‘Traffic’ by the same Steven Soderbergh). This causes little moral anguish for anyone except Louis, a newcomer from Guyana seeking a better life, and his sister Natalia, the fiancée of Akeed, Mrs. Mahabir’s nephew (whom she hired for the kidnapping).

Naturally, everything goes awry: attempts to escape the circle of suffering themselves become a run in circles, and the centrifugal force of this sad motion brings together everyone, even the most unexpected characters in the series. They kidnap the wrong boy. The ransom isn’t paid in time. The teenager’s mother (Claire Danes) understands more than she says, and the father (Timothy Olyphant with the face of Billy Bob Thornton) is preoccupied with his own concerns. Their lives are interrupted by Postal Service Inspector Melody Harmony (Zazie Beetz). The harmonious name doesn’t match the character at all — she’s smart and determined, but also pushy, meddlesome, always sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong (which, as we know, is essentially a detective’s job) and rude to everyone.

The series’ tangled plot is less engaging than it is bewildering or even hypnotic: what is happening, who are all these people, why is the postal service investigating murders, why is the Guyanese mafia drawing circles with chalk in the park, and most importantly — what does the elderly African-American man who played chess with Chef Jeff have to do with it? More questions than answers.

But while screenwriter Ed Solomon, who seems possessed by a detective writer from the forties, blends Akira Kurosawa’s film ‘High and Low’ with old noirs and new realities, director Soderbergh does what we all love him for. He shifts the angle by a few degrees, frames shots at odd angles, his handheld camera chases after the characters, practically breathing down their necks, but never adopts anyone’s point of view.

‘Full Circle’ is certainly not the work for which this great director will be remembered, but like many of his other projects — for example, ‘Kimi’ (a remarkable exercise in Hitchcockian conspiracy thriller) or ‘Logan Lucky’ (a great little film) — its secondary status doesn’t stop this series from delighting both devoted fans of the director and, well, everyone, everyone, everyone.

The only serious problem with the series is that it is better directed than written. This often happens with Soderbergh, because it’s hard to work with a genius, but here it is particularly striking. There are no issues with the intrigue; its fragmentary beauty unfolds elegantly at the end, but the idea that white capitalism is to blame for all the world’s troubles is probably obvious to everyone. Certainly to anyone who has watched even one film in their life (even ‘The Lion King’). Don’t get me wrong — capitalism is bad, that’s true — but proving this, well, axiom again so convincingly is like kicking someone when they’re down.

If you set aside the search for morality in a story about how morality is situational and justice is nonexistent, you can truly enjoy the nuanced performances and how precisely, yet with subtle touches, the characters are written. Olyphant finally played not a cowboy but a bewildered man, and he did it brilliantly. Our beloved actress Claire Danes, in the role of a tired woman who holds everything together and keeps it all inside, is, as always, wonderful. Mrs. Mahabir, who unfortunately has less screen time than one would wish, is mesmerizing, and the young heroes, who are dealing not even with their fathers’ sins but with their grandfathers’ crimes, are properly ambiguous: they evoke obvious sympathy while also naturally irritating.

The star of the show is, of course, Zazie Beetz, who essentially buries the main archetype of the 2010s — the rude and toxic genius of deduction (Sherlock, Dr. House, in a sense Dr. Lightman, though thanks to Tim Roth, he has too many nuances) who saves everyone, and being unbearable is forgiven because of his genius. Melody Harmony’s genius leads to nothing in particular — no harmony can change this chaos, and she runs around the plot, occasionally clarifying things but changing nothing, and her insufferability finally finds no justification.

That, perhaps, is what the show is about: the original title ‘Full Circle’ can be translated as both a complete circle and a vicious circle, and both translations are correct. The story comes full circle, old grievances are relived, tragedy turns into farce, and at the same time, this circle is closed: there is no way out. You can kidnap a child, lift the curse, kill the bad guys, and save the good ones, but everything remains as it was. Or rather — as if nothing happened at all.