Who’s the biggest bad guy? The absolute worst of the worst? Nazis of course.
Evil incarnate, they’re the big bad for the second time in an alternate-history Amazon Prime Video original series. The first was the intriguing but slowly paced Man In The High Castle.
In Hunters, starring Oscar winner Al Pacino in his first TV role, a rag-tag group of assassins are on a mission to take down a cadre of Nazis hiding out in America three decades after the Second World War.
With a really strong, shocking debut, it’s easy to recommend for its sheer bombastic energy — at least at first.
It’s a stylish, Tarantino-esque (who also took on Nazis in an alternate history film Inglourious Basterds) new series that is both extremely fun … and a little icky.
Often saturated in colour and humour, Hunters can come off as a comic book adaptation, and I actually had to look it up to make sure it wasn’t.
The ick factor comes from treating the Holocaust and the immense tragedy that surrounds it as a sort of playground for some goofy revenge fantasy.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The story centres around Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman), whose grandmother Ruth (Jeannie Berlin), a survivor of the Holocaust, is murdered and he’s left seeking answers and a purpose.
An old friend of his grandmother, Meyer Offerman (Pacino), takes Jonah under his wing and unravels a conspiracy surrounding her death and those responsible: the war criminals that perpetuated the Holocaust are still alive and they’re on American soil, and oh yeah they killed her.
He joins ranks with an eccentric cast of characters, including a British nun who wields duelling silenced pistols and a down-on-his-luck movie star with mutton chops (among others), whose primary mission is to take down the Nazis, one war criminal at a time.
What they don’t quite realize is the extent of the conspiracy. The Nazis, who have infiltrated many of America’s institutions, are planning to rise from the ashes and conquer the world in a plot called the Fourth Reich.
Lerman and Pacino are the standouts, providing a centre to keep the viewer grounded.
Dylan Baker is haunting as Biff Simpson, one of the senior Nazis living in America with an ear of the president and Jerrika Hinto, who plays an FBI agent trying to discover the mystery in parallel with the assassins.
The others are a bit one-note and obvious, albeit likeable.
Some of these stories are based on reality. Yes the U.S. brought Nazis to America with Operation Paperclip, and that’s pretty messed up, and yes, they worked for organizations like NASA conducting research. But to be clear, the whole attempted Nazi uprising thing is very false.
For people who went through the war to suddenly have their old enemies as neighbours or colleagues could make for some interesting watching. But it’s clear the creators wanted to have some fun with this setting.
And yes, there were Nazi hunters who systematically tracked and killed Nazis that fled following the collapse of Hitler’s regime. But those two things didn’t intersect; at least I don’t think they did, quite to this degree.
As a viewer it can feel a bit misleading, whiplashing back and forth from fact and fiction.
The show feels both like a criticism of the very real Operation Paperclip, which saw more than 1,500 Nazis (some likely war criminals) immigrate to the U.S. for their skills in science in order to take on the Soviets, and also a commentary on more contemporary politics, with the rise white supremacy and neo-Nazism in America.
Nazis are actually everywhere. Wait, really? That’s pretty serious. Yep, let’s go kill them! *Queue funky ‘70s guitar riff and slow-motion action montage.
It cheapens the experience a bit, boiling things down to pure violence for violence's sake.
The opening credits feature a chessboard, which plays a role in a particularly grotesque scene during a flashback at a concentration camp, which is meant to shock the audience for its cruelty, but just comes off as campy and exploitative.
If you’re OK with that (campy and exploitative) maybe give it a whirl. But again, the ick factor is hard to ignore.
What's new?
Here’s some of what’s worth checking out in March:
NETFLIX:
RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 11), March 1
Ready Player One, March 3
Riverdale (season 4), March 4
Castlevania (season 3), March 5
Ozark (season 3), March 27
CRAVE:
Westworld season 3 (HBO), March 15
The Plot Against America, series premiere (HBO), March 16
Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood, March 27
DISNEY PLUS:
Black Panther, March 4
A Wrinkle in Time, March 25
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO:
ZeroZeroZero (series premiere), March 6
Making The Cut (series premiere), March 27
Judy, March 27
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