New Taylor Sheridan Oil Field Series Landman Brings Together Billy-Bob Thornton; Demi Moore; Jon Hamm and Ali Larter

Landman is led by Thornton as Tommy Norris, the overseer of an oil-drilling operation in west Texas. He does the daily dirty work of managing crews in the world’s largest oil field, fending off cartel competition and basically doing the bidding of his boss, Monty (Hamm). It’s a world where roughnecks and wildcat billionaires are fuelling a boom so big it’s reshaping the climate, the economy and the geopolitics of the region.

The series is written by Sheridan and Christian Wallace, inspired by the podcast Boomtown, which Wallace hosted and based on his own experience working in the modern-day, fortune-seeking world of oil rigs. It retains Sheridan’s signature western swagger but incorporates serious doses of dark humour and challenging family dynamics.

Variety reviewer Alison Herman wrote that “Landman is strongest when using Thornton’s always-compelling screen presence to guide the viewer through the vagaries of the oil and gas industry, including potential alternatives and the looming threat of climate change”, while Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall describes the series as “a slick Eighties primetime soap opera dressed up in the trappings of a contemporary antihero drama — Dallas with cursing, more violence, and nudity.”

Reviewing Landman for NPR, Eric Deggans writes that “on the surface, it's another of Sheridan's many drama series triumphs, harnessing Thornton's on-screen charisma to fuel a gutsy story about a modern-day oil boomtown. Like so many of his shows, it portrays a working man's culture from an area of life rarely highlighted in Hollywood, educating viewers on its subtleties while highlighting the stuff that binds us all.”

Don’t miss Landman on M-Net (DStv Channel 101) from 2 June at 9pm.

Click here for the trailer