Safe | Netflix Original | Harlan Coben played it safe on this one.

If The Five , Sherlock and Dexter did not intrigue you enough to give it a go at the new  Netflix Original Safe , i doubt anything would. Harlan Coben’s sticks to the generic formula that worked so well in The Five and is a pretty interesting watch. It, however, does not follow the upward trajectory in terms of entertainment factor as in the case of ‘the five’. 

Safe is set in suburban British gated community where all the main characters of the story live.  The story gets rolling when a girl goes missing from the community. In typical Coben style there are a few other characters, all with their own share of secrets that form the crux of the story. In the end everything is connected, some less convincingly than others.

After a brief hiatus, Michael C. Hall returns as the main character Tom Delaney , a widower and parent of two kids in Safe. Unlike the weird neighborhood serial-killer Dexter, here he is on the run searching for his missing daughter. The brilliant and beautiful Amanda Abbington (Mary Watson – Sherlock) plays the role of Sophie Mason, who is the love interest of Tom and at the same time the police officer heading the investigation of the missing girl and the murder of the boyfriend.

It felt like watching ‘the five’ and ‘broadchurch’ all over again, except ‘Safe’ was not as intriguing. Some really good performances and the ‘glitter and gold’ theme song sort of made up for the shortcoming though. If you are aware of Coben’s style of connecting something from a distant past to the present, the suspense is there to be guessed. I would recommend this if you are into mysteries and love binge-watching something that has a proper ending.