In 2022, Netflix released a serial killer drama starring Stanley Tucci called Inside Man, and critics had a lot to say about the series. Tucci stars in Inside Man as Jefferson Grieff, an ex-criminology professor on death row in an Arizona prison for murdering his wife. David Tennant co-stars as British vicar Harry Watling, who accepts an incriminating USB drive from a troubled parishioner and ends up locking a woman in his basement to keep her from reporting it to the police. Grieff and the woman in Watling’s basement – Janice Fife (played by Dolly Wells) – cross paths in the most unexpected way.

Inside Man was created and written by Steven Moffat, best known as the showrunner of Doctor Who and Sherlock. All four episodes were directed by Paul McGuigan, who helmed the feature films Lucky Number Slevin, Victor Frankenstein and Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. He also previously worked with Moffat on Sherlock season 2, episode 1, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” and season 2, episode 2, “The Hounds of Baskerville.” With all this star power in front of and behind the camera, hopes were high for Inside Man. But what did the Inside Man reviews say?

RELATED: Why Did Jefferson Grieff Kill His Wife In Inside Man?

Inside Man Is Predictable But Stanley Tucci Is Gripping

Stanley Tucci in prison in Inside Man

The Inside Man reviews weren’t unanimously laudatory, but there were more positive critical opinions than negative ones. The series earned a “fresh” approval rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, so roughly two out of every three critics gave Inside Man a positive review. The site’s critics’ consensus says that Inside Man’s ambitious approach is “undercut by clunky and predictable plotting,” but concedes that Tucci and Tennant’s gripping performances provide “welcome compensations for viewers who enjoy twisty thrillers.

In a four-star review for The Guardian, Lucy Mangan praised Inside Man’s “funny and typically meaty mystery.Radio Times’ Morgan Jeffery also praised the series, particularly Moffat’s son, Louis Oliver, for his “show-stealing performance” as Watling’s teenage son Ben. However, Anita Singh’s was a bit more critical as her two-star review in The Daily Telegraph said that Moffat’s scripts have plenty of “good lines [and] clever little plot twists,” but that the narrative of Inside Man is “built on a flaw so fundamental that it’s impossible to get past it.

Stream Inside Man On Netflix

David Tennant in a pub in Inside Man

All episodes of Inside Man are available to stream on Netflix along with several other serial killer TV shows. While it earned a lukewarm reception from critics, Inside Man was more poorly received by viewers, with a “rotten” audience score of just 46% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, that means that almost half of the show’s audience enjoyed it, so there’s about a 50/50 chance that new viewers will be hooked by its grisly thriller storyline. Although Inside Man was conceived as a limited series to complete its story in four parts, Moffat said (via Digital Spy) that season 2 is possible because the first “performed quite well” on Netflix.