Creators Tony Ayres and Christian White introduce too many twists and turns for their own good LONDON: Netflix thriller “Clickbait” is nothing if not upfront. The main aim of this eight-part whodunnit, as its name implies, appears to be getting you to click on the next installment, so a discernible pattern soon emerges: a red herring, followed by a dead end, closely backed up by a left-field revelation just in time for the episode credits to roll. Ads by optAd360 For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @arabnews.lifestyle “Clickbait” is on Netflix. (Supplied) Adrian Grenier (“Entourage” and “The Devil Wears Prada”) is Nick Brewer, a physical therapist with a picture-perfect family and life. When Nick is kidnapped, a video surfaces online showing him beaten up, and holding up cards that admit to abusing women — and proclaiming he will be killed when the number of views reaches five million. As the hit counter creeps upwards, Nick’s sister Pia (Zoe Kazan), wife Sophie (Betty Gabriel) and aspiring homicide detective Roshan (Phoenix Raei) all scramble to determine his whereabouts and whether there’s any truth to his apparent confession. Each episode focuses on a different character (and introduces a few others too), and sheds more light on who might have taken Nick, why, and whether the perfect family man might have a few secrets of his own. This doesn’t really need a spoiler alert, but guess what? Everybody has more going on than you first think. Each episode focuses on a different character (and introduces a few others too). (Supplied) Ads by optAd360 Unfortunately, there is a subtle difference between a story that twists and turns because it is genuinely enthralling, and one that relentlessly twists and turns in an attempt to be so — and “Clickbait” comes down on the wrong side of the line. At its heart, the story of Nick and his possible guilt simply isn’t interesting enough to fill eight episodes, so creators Tony Ayres and Christian White pad out the running time with false flags, narrative U-turns and (sadly) abandoned story threads. Raei’s portrayal of a conflicted police officer is a bright spark, but — apart from in his own dedicated episode — the character is relegated to little more than lurking and looking rakish. The final resolution to the mystery is unexpected, it’s fair to say, but by the time they reach that point — if they bother — audiences will be so desensitized to surprise, thanks to some of the more ridiculous bait-and-switch moves, that the big reveal is a bit of a damp squib.