Release: January 24th, 2025, Prime
Shafted is a French comedy series that premiered on January 24th, on Netflix with 6 episodes, each ranging from 30-35 minutes.
The series follow four middle age white men to showcase how they navigate their lives with masculinity as the main driver. Each character deals with different issues with their jobs, intimate relationships with their partners/spouses, different challenges each encounter and how their ways, views on masculinity play a pivotal role in some of their life choices.
In the 1st episode, we see the four male friends in a circle, chanting as they jump up & down while we watch in confusion as to what’s is going on. Luckily, the show takes us back to the beginning where this all started. So, as we look back, we learn that one of the friend’s named Tom is struggling with the fact that his wife left him and is now dating their orthodontics. Tom and his friends took it upon themselves and start smashing the car of the man his soon to be ex-wife was dating, so from there, all 4 went to court and, as a condition, they are to attend a workshop on ‘deconstructing toxic masculinity traits.’
The concept of the show itself is not new, Netflix did release a similar show called Alpha Males however, it was based in Madrid instead of France though, same concept. Unfortunately, this show missed the mark, in my opinion, it is a poorly executed, lack of character development, lack of storytelling, compelling structure and/or substance.
On the other hand, I don’t think this was an entirely bad series, there were a few lighthearted fun jokes, couple of fun scenes and dialogue. I mean its one of those series that’s not meant to be of anything, it’s the same as scrolling through bunch of TikTok reels and Facebook, so nothing earth shattering, just senseless show to watch.
