Karl Puschmann: Netflix’s wild new series about road rage makes for beefy viewing

Ali Wong as Amy, Steven Yeun as Danny in Beef, streaming now on Netflix.

There’s a strange and disturbing transformation that occurs in a frightening number of the population when they get behind the wheel of their car. In some drivers the mere suggestion of a slight or a perceived injustice is enough to morph even the most mild-mannered mum, gentle granddad or sensible student into a rage-filled beast with a red-hot temper that burns with the intensity of a thousand suns.

Such righteous and furious anger must be released lest these drivers explode in their cars like foul-mouthed fireworks. To vent they either punch their car horn with the same cold-blooded power of boxing legend Mike Tyson in his prime or they raise their middle finger to the sky and passionately shake it at the offender like they’re the maracas player in a Cuban cha-cha-chá band.

Like Covid, the disease of road rage can infect anyone but unlike covid, there’s sadly no vaccine.

Before continuing, I’ll put these stones I’m holding down, step outside of my glass house and admit that I too have, on very rare occasion, succumbed to this affliction. But these days I try to be cooler than any number of cucumbers when I’m in my car. Not because I’m suddenly all Zen but rather because I don’t want to get killed over some jackass cutting me off, or merging unlike a zip and more like a total fricken pillock.

This is not an exaggeration. In November last year, this very paper ran a headline that read, “Nearly a third of Kiwis involved in road-rage incidents in the past year”. While a separate survey in 2021 saw 50 per cent saying they’d experienced road rage and 27 per cent of those people saying it involved aggressive or intimidating behaviour towards them. That same year, in Ōtorohanga, a road rage incident led to murder.

Netflix’s new buzz show Beef is a prime example of what can happen if you don’t change your road rage ways. It starts with two people having a bad day and ends with death and destruction. It could have all been avoided if either one of them had simply not reacted when the other tooted their horn or flipped the bird. But, in what is unfortunately an incredibly realistic depiction of how these things usually go down, neither is prepared to be like Elsa and let it go.

Instead, their violent reactions grow and grow, alongside their bubbling anger, as they fight to get the upper hand and come out on top. The carpark altercation escalates to an insane level that takes over their lives and becomes an ongoing obsession.

This, then, is the titular beef between the successful Amy and the struggling Danny, played respectively by comedian Ali Wong and actor Steven Yuen. And that’s pretty much all there is to the show. Two people get road rage at each other and fight.

What makes Beef such tasty viewing is how this simple pitch is expanded upon and explored. To sustain its 10 episodes, you know things need to escalate - and in that regard the show doesn’t let you down. But it does so in brilliantly unexpected ways, building from a small initial revenge that’s seemingly inspired by the urine transgression against The Dude in The Big Lebowski right up to an all-guns-blazing home invasion.

What makes it so interesting is that it gets to these extremes via mishaps and misunderstandings, through secrets and lies and speaking harsh truths. You always know it’s going to get bigger but you can never expect how.

Where it gets utterly compelling, however, is that it goes deep into the darkness of the psyche of its two protagonists. It paints their lives and crafts their backstories to explain exactly how they ended up locked in this dangerous game of Cat and Cat with each other.

Beef also balances its tone perfectly, managing to switch gears from comedy to drama to thriller multiple times an episode without skidding out and crashing into its own ambition.

It’s a helluva show and should leave you thinking about the potential consequences of slamming down on your car horn when some fool does something foolish when you’re out driving. Beef, it’s great in a sandwich but not so hot in real life.