DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. "The Sticky" is a new TV series starring Margo Martindale, inspired by the biggest crime in Canadian history - the theft of a massive amount of government-stored maple syrup. This new six-part Prime Video miniseries, all of which is streaming now, tells that story but more whimsically than faithfully.
Don't think of "The Sticky" as a fact-based Canadian crime story. Think of it more like the movie "Fargo," where half the fun is enjoying the snow-covered scenery and the somewhat cartoonish characters. And though the series creators of "The Sticky," Brian Donovan and Ed Herro, don't mine the French Canadian accents for laughs the way "Fargo" played with those Minnesota drawls, the loose connection with the truth is exactly the same. The "Fargo" movie and TV series stated at the start that they were based on a true story, but they were lying, because why not? The opening disclaimer in "The Sticky" is just as playful but much more honest. It says, this is absolutely not the true story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist.
In that real-life robbery, $18 million worth of maple syrup reserves were stolen, with the theft discovered in 2012. In this six-part version for TV, the heist is planned by a trio of unlikely co-conspirators. There's Remy, a local security guard, the only security guard at the place where local syrup is stockpiled. Mike is a low-level mobster visiting from Chicago. And Ruth is a local farmer who taps her trees for sap each year but whose land is about to be sold out from under her.
All three of these people have grudges to settle - the security guard against the syrup federation that treats him poorly, the gangster against the mob family that takes him for granted, and the farmer whose property is being targeted by the head of the Syrup Association, even though her husband is in the hospital in a coma. Remy, the security guard, hatches a plan to steal some syrup. He tells the mobster, who tries to enlist Ruth because of her knowledge of the trade. Mike is played by Chris Diamantopoulos. Guillaume Cyr plays Remy, and Margo Martindale plays Ruth.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE STICKY")
CHRIS DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) You need this. So hear him out. Remy.
GUILLAUME CYR: (As Remy Bouchard) So here's my system. It took some thinking, but it's pretty sweet. In the dark of night, I sneak a barrel out each month. Then Orval sells the syrup to his guy one province over. We just have to do that a lot of times, and we get rich - easy-peasy. Boom.
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) Boom.
MARGO MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Landry) Boom. Boom - what? One barrel, that's your plan? A million dollars three ways, that's what you want?
CYR: (As Remy Bouchard) Yeah.
MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Landry) Let's see. OK, I thought about it for four seconds. Listen to this. The association has a barrel set price at $20,489. We sell to ham-and-eggers in Ottawa. They're going to screw us. We go 2K on the black market. Now, that means - you know what that means? That means you two bozos have to pinch (whispering) 500 barrels at night in a week. That's not just dumb. That's stupid. They're going to notice 500 barrels missing.
BIANCULLI: Once the three agree to work together, the real fun begins. Outside factors and unexpected antagonists keep gumming up the works. And these three very different characters react differently to almost everything, including one another. Ruth is the brains of the outfit. Remy knows almost nothing. And Mike certainly knows nothing about the production methods of maple syrup, which he demonstrates in a conversation with them during a cramped truck ride.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE STICKY")
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) Six weeks - you wait all year long for a lousy six weeks to tap syrup.
CYR: (As Remy Bouchard) Sap.
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) What?
CYR: (As Remy Bouchard) She said sap.
MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Landry) Four to six weeks to collect the tree sap. Then we turn the sap to syrup.
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) It's not just syrup in the trees?
CYR: (As Remy Bouchard) No.
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) Wow.
CYR: (As Remy Bouchard, laughing) No, that would be amazing.
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) OK, but we're stealing the syrup, right? We're not stealing sap.
MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Landry) Of course not. The sap - how do you not know this?
DIAMANTOPOULOS: (As Mike Byrne) 'Cause no one does, Ruth - no one except sap farmers.
CYR: (As Remy Bouchard) They're not called sap farmers.
MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Landry) The point is sugaring season's almost over.
BIANCULLI: Margo Martindale, who was so enjoyable to watch on both "Justified" and "The Americans," has a blast with this leading role. Her major co-stars, including Gita Miller and Suzanne Clement as a pair of investigators on their trail, are all Canadian actors and all add to the mix here. But the secret ingredient and the reason to make this a must-watch TV series is an eventual, substantial guest star appearance by an American, Jamie Lee Curtis. She arrives late but makes as big an impact as she did in her Emmy-winning guest stint on "The Bear" or as the tax auditor in "Everything Everywhere All At Once." It's such a blast to see Curtis and Martindale swing for the fences with their portrayals, and both of them hit it out of the park.
The entire company of actors is strong, and the French versions of American pop songs on the soundtrack are a delight. The best part of all is that while "The Sticky" is loaded with wonderful characters, performances, music and surprises, it's not at all overly sentimental, which is good. The last thing you'd want from a TV show about a maple syrup heist is for it to be too sappy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JE T'AIME TROP TOI")
CLAUDE FRANCOIS: (Singing in French).
BIANCULLI: Coming up, we hear some new Christmas songs. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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