Reel Rundown: ‘Untamed’ may be shot in the wrong wilderness, but the murder mystery still has a beautiful backdrop

It’s easy to enjoy the Netflix series “Untamed” because of the many shots of scenic Yosemite National Park that the production employs.

As it turns out, though, the six-episode series starring Eric Bana is about as authentically Yosemite as actor Bana’s American accent is. The truth is that Bana hails from Australia, and “Untamed” was shot mostly in and around Vancouver, British Columbia – which, as we all know, is in Canada.

OK, Bana is a veteran movie star, and he does sound credibly American. And the three directors of the series – Thomas Bezucha, Nick Murphy and Neasa Hardiman – do benefit from the several aerial shots of Yosemite that give “Untamed” its basic feel.

But every scene featuring the actual cast took place either on a Vancouver sound stage or in natural areas just outside the city itself. Not that it makes any real difference. “Untamed” uses the idea of Yosemite, visually spectacular as it might be, as a mere backdrop to what is your basic murder mystery.

Bana stars as Kyle Turner, an investigator for the National Park Service with a troubled past. And that past comes to light when he is called to check out the death of a young woman, later identified as Lucy Cook (Ezra Franky). She, as we witness in the first’s episode’s opening scene, has fallen from the top of Yosemite’s famed summit known as El Capitan.

That investigation, though, is only one of several plotlines. Both Turner’s brooding nature and his past are large parts of the equation, which involves his history of alcoholism and also the death of his son, his strained relationships with his ex-wife (Rosemary DeWitt), his genial boss and friend (Sam Neil) and the park’s officious superintendent (Joe Holt).

Then there’s Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a former Los Angeles beat cop who, for reasons that become clear only gradually, has left the big city and taken a job as a park ranger. Assigned to assist the moody Turner, she struggles to adjust to her new job even as she dodges her young son’s father, whom she sees as a threat.

In terms of the death, which Turner almost immediately suspects is a murder, the writers/showrunners Elle Smith and Mark L. Smith give us several suspicious characters. Among them are the resentful park ranger Milch (William Smillie), the mysterious wildlife manager Shane (Wilson Bethel) and Turner’s Indigenous buddy and park employee Jay (Raoul Max Trujillo).

Add to this list the several members of a commune who are camping in a remote part of the park, the lawyer who is badgering Turner about a man who disappeared several years before and, not the least, the presence of a cache of illegal drugs marked with an “X” symbol, and you have any number of characters and subplots to follow. Maybe too many.

The series writers have others problem tendencies as well, the main one being a Screenwriting 101 no-no. On at least three occasions, someone gets pulled out of trouble just as they are facing certain death. It’s bad enough when such coincidences occur even once during a multi-episode series. But three times?

“Untamed” does have it moments, though. In addition to several serious scenes, one involving getting trapped in a narrow tunnel, Santiago’s character provides the series a bit of humor as Turner forces her – the consummate urbanite – to ride on horseback with him through the park’s interior. DeWitt has a moving confessional monologue, and Bana seldom wavers in his portrayal of a solemn man, crushed by grief, who finds peace only in the great outdoors.

And give the series that much. It does feature lots of amazing nature shots – even if they were all shot in Canada.