If there is any reason to bother watching the new Prime Video series, Ride or Die, it's the excellent women who lead it confidently. There is Hannah Waddingham as Judith, an assassin who kills people for a living. She has wonderful hair, wears stylish dresses, and sometimes looks more like a Vogue model than an instinctive, cunning killer. This isn't much of a complaint, however, given how good—how intimidating—Judith looks when she fights her enemies. If her model-esque appearance says anything, it's that she knows how to use her looks to kill. What's more, Waddingham is quite convincing when given emotionally demanding scenes. When she weeps over a relationship, you see how painful the breakup must have been. During the opening scene, Judith goes against an order from her handler by trading sniper assassination for stabbing. She risks getting caught, though she also seems to get a kick out of playing daredevil.
Sam (Calam Lynch), the character who warns Judith against disobeying direct orders, tells her that she is "acting up" wildly, maybe because she has turned 50. Waddingham, indeed, is 51, and if Ride or Die, through Judith, is suggesting anything, it's that the actor is still healthy, athletic, and commanding. But what about Judith? Why does she decide to stab her target? Is it because she seeks thrills after playing it safe for much of her professional life? Is she bored? Does she, after all these years, now crave some "spice"? Judith is still sexually active and has one-night stands occasionally. Does she, after sex, miss having a family? Ride or Die hints at something along these lines, but the idea is dropped almost immediately. This, frustratingly, isn't the only notion the series dismisses casually. Debbie Claybourne (Octavia Spencer), after learning about her best friend Judith's work, often remarks that violence is never the answer. She preaches forgiveness and de-escalation, and even practices both at a club when surrounded by drug dealers who threaten to turn aggressive. The series itself, however, seems to endorse violence, which becomes evident in the way it resolves its central conflict. The bad guys and the main antagonist are ultimately dealt with through blood, bullets, explosions, and fistfights.
Still, Ride or Die never gives us the scene where Debbie realizes her idealistic views are worth little outside her domestic life. The debate between violence and nonviolence leads to no real epiphany. Similarly, Debbie's concerns about her children are rendered disposable by being brought up only once—and even then only briefly—when she calls them from a phone booth to deliver bad news about their father. Instead of bad news, though, Ride or Die gives way to a twist. This basically tells you all you need to know about the series: it's more occupied with twists and turns than with doing justice to its dramatic ideas. Created by Tessa Coates, the show is fueled by an interesting premise: "What if your best friend became jealous of your other best friend, thereby unleashing their psycho tendencies?" Add another question: "What if you never saw that crazy bestie as your bestie?" One can take this concept into the realm of either drama or comedy. Ride or Die, though, wants to be everything. It wants to be funny, emotional, sexy, and stylish, and, alas, ends up being nothing solid. The filmmaking is as half-baked as the writing.
Almost all the actors possess a distinct comic sensibility, but they aren't given anything especially witty to speak. "Watch your six," says a man to Debbie at a party. "You watch your six," she replies. You almost want to reward everyone for trying, though it's hard to ignore that Ride or Die is simply lacking in genuine humor and wit. (The scene where some girls at a hostel track down a lead through social media and personal contacts, however, is a definite highlight.) There is sex in the series, and it's devoid of both sensuality and heat. It really does seem as though streaming shows have forgotten how to make sex erotic. All we get are brief shots that merely convey that the act has happened—or is about to happen. Where is the tantalizing chemistry? The action sequences, too, are nothing out of the ordinary. In one episode, Debbie switches off the main power while Judith, in the washroom, beats up a group of drug dealers. Debbie also uses a fire extinguisher to take someone down, applying one of Judith's lessons in real life. Nonetheless, the fight itself is shot without much imagination or inventive choreography. It's pretty basic, especially considering the high standards set by action thrillers like Ballerina and Bloodhounds (available on Netflix).
Ride or Die itself is filmed with a conventional TV aesthetic. The plain visuals are matched by equally plain exposition. Meanwhile, the intimate betrayals and conflicts never go beyond the sad expressions the actors nevertheless wear quite convincingly. Like most eight-hour streaming shows, it introduces skin-deep characters only to send them from one expensive-looking location to another before revealing one or two of its cards somewhere near the finish line. Those revelations work better in theory than in practice because the characters carrying their weight aren't conceived with a rich inner life. Ride or Die flirts with both drama and comedy. As a result, it succeeds at neither and wastes the potential of its fascinating premise. The weighty ideas here deserve an equally weighty series. Ride or Die, though, comes across as little more than a fluff piece.
However, as mentioned earlier, the show is blessed with a talented cast, and they keep you watching. Spencer and Waddingham provide a lived-in texture to their on-screen pairing. Notice, too, how Spencer conveys Debbie's heartbreak during the scene in which she watches a video recording. Her stunned, silent face is almost harrowing. Savannah Steyn as Queenie, Jamie Parker as David, and Ed Skrein as Billy Donovan are all fine. It's Sylvia Hoeks, in the role of Ana, though, who seems to be having a genuinely good time. Hoeks imbues her inflections and physical gestures with both comic and baleful intensity. She appears to dance through her scenes with light, unpredictable movements and infectious delight. Here is an actor who relishes every second of her screen time. Even Camille Chamoux is quite amusing. I chuckled when she revealed that she had planted a tracking device on her ex-husband's phone to see if he was cheating. When her assistant asks whether he indeed was cheating, she replies that it wasn't her husband but she who was having an affair with somebody. Thanks to a talented cast performing with conviction, Ride or Die never crashes into extreme tedium before the end credits. It's because of these actors that you mostly stay on this bumpy ride. The series may not be truly memorable or consistently entertaining, but they save it from becoming a complete catastrophe. Ride or Die is ultimately forgettable—not quite a failure, but, in the end, just all right.
Final Score - [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times
Note: All 8 episodes are screened for this review.
Premiere Date: July 15, 2026, on Prime Video