TV REVIEW: 'Hunters' just misses the spot
Logan Lerman and Al Pacino star in Hunters, available on Amazon Prime Video.
Let’s be clear – Hunters is a superhero show. This is Amazon’s new niche after last year’s highly-regarded The Boys, a grisly and violent look at corrupt superheroes. There are multiple references to comic books because Jacob, the main POV character, is an awkward but really smart teen who gets beat up by the jocks all the time, and whose secret crush coincidentally just happens to date the lead jock, which is all very Peter Parker.
Of course, like all superhero origin movies, tragedy strikes – Jacob’s grandmother is shot after a burglar breaks into their home in the middle of the night, leaving him alone because he has no other surviving family members. Naturally, all heroes need a hand (“Why do we fall, Bruce?”), so this creepy old dude played brilliantly by Al Pacino shows up and introduces himself as Meyer Offerman, an old friend of Jacob’s grandmother who owes a life debt because she saved him during the Nazi occupation. Offerman has become very wealthy since, and he’s got a huge axe to grind against the Nazis.
Along with six others, they are the Hunters, ordinary folk by day but Nazi hunters by night. Offerman – a fitting name – acts like an old Bruce Wayne, providing resources and knowledge, and their newest member, Jacob, is like Robin – he even compares himself to the Boy Wonder in the show – all doe-eyed and idealistic. Batman references, by the way, are commonplace throughout the season. There’s a subplot with an FBI agent (Jerrika Hinton) tracking the trail of clues left behind by the murders, and its inclusion provides further depth into the historical background of the events in the show. The plot beats are predictable, but it’s a nice way of doing it instead of dumping exposition, though I’m still not sure which method I prefer.
Jerrika Hinton as Millie Morris, an FBI agent
It’s a good-enough premise, but the moral question it posits is far more interesting. There’s a lot of torture, and a lot of it to good end. Important plot information is revealed usually when Nazis are tortured, and when the situation is flipped and the Nazis do the torturing, it’s usually to show the strength of Jews. I don’t think Hunters endorses torture, but simply by tolerating torture we may not be as progressive as we thought, especially given all the scientific advances made during the war years. But clearly the show says torture is effective, and as many characters point out in the show, what’s the difference between a Nazi and a Nazi hunter if neither show mercy? It would become very problematic if our heroes are thoroughly vindicated when the show inevitably ends, because the blood is on their hands, too.
The show also has a problem with its tendency to paint bad guys as comically evil. Dylan Baker doing his best Child Catcher impression with his arched eyebrows and shit-eating grin, and Travis being a murdering psychopath – because all Nazi assassins must be psychopaths – is all rather convenient. They’re caricatures at this point, and that means they’re also not particularly interesting. Armed with some eye-catchingly obvious CGI – that’s not a good thing – it is literally comical about how the bad guys keep getting away, and the show even (unknowingly?) lampoons itself by asking that very question. (Because heroes are idiots, duh).
That brings us to Jacob, played by Logan Lerman, the young man who is forever cast as the idealistic hero because he looks like a guy you could root for. He’s the Percy Jackson, the Luke Skywalker and the Marty McFly, the young kid with a bit of an attitude who matures quickly into a hero with the help of many others (who never seem to get the credit they deserve). The season is 10 episodes long, but it could easily be eight if Jacob hadn’t made entry-level superhero mistakes. We just can’t have him be useful right away because there would be no character arc. Anyway, Jacob does things that all dumb heroes do, making very questionable decisions and taking too damn long to figure things out, and it all becomes very infuriating at times. There are other side characters, but some stories just aren’t very interesting or even explained, including the rivalry between two Nazi assassins, and the totally useless and cringe-inducing Lonny Flash (Josh Radnor), the master of disguise who wears a disguise just once the entire season.
Each of the Hunters has a special skill: weapons, disguises, etc.
Tonal shifts are also a big problem. There’s a feeling that the show tries to be Tarantino pulp with its abrupt segues to character introductions or backstories, with some even breaking the fourth wall. Some segues are satirical, like sketches from an improv group, and it all feels very bizarre because you’re never quite sure if the show even takes itself seriously.
The production design and Pacino’s performance drive the show. Skipping back and forth in time from WWII in Europe to 1977 in New York, everything looks like it was taken from an old photograph and recreated, and Pacino does a really good job of shedding his Italian New Yorker for a Jewish New Yorker, and except for one scene where he shouts at someone, he’s barely recognizable as the affable Offerman. It’s always a pleasure to see a more nuanced performance from him.
Critics have said, “no, wait, this isn’t how the Holocaust happened” have sorely missed the point of the show. It is clearly - despite acknowledging certain historical events and being the brainchild of a descendant of Holocaust survivors - a work of fiction. Maybe we should blame Band of Brothers, but there’s a strange expectation that stories based on historical events need to be accurate or realistic even though the rule is often inconsistently defined and applied. Similar criticism was levied at Jojo Rabbit, and many critics took exception to its depiction of Hitler, which was neither accurate nor realistic. They argue that it is harmful to the dissemination of actual fact when Hunters show Nazis playing a game of human chess with Jewish prisoners, and when Jojo Rabbit depicts Hitler as a comedian frolicking in the woods.
Amidst mostly positive reception and some markedly negative reception from people who just don’t get it, Hunters has not yet been renewed for a second season despite ending on a big plot twist, not unlike The Boys. I find it difficult to trust Jacob can carry the show, and it’ll need a Pacino-like presence to guide the ship. For this show to survive, it might need to introduce more key characters or veer drastically in its narrative so Jacob is no longer the main POV, as the conflict has clearly grown much bigger than something he can handle. It would be a huge disservice to the relative scale of this multi-time period, multi-location show if a 19-year-old virgin can stop the Fourth Reich.