March Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman -- HUNTERS: Superhero Nazi hunters, murderers or mitzvah-doers?

This post is written 
by our monthly correspondent, 
Lee Liberman



Indignantly called schlock-cum-exploitation by some reviewers, HUNTERS arrives as the latest Holocaust-minded series loosely based on the presence in the US of Nazis who fled here after the war or were imported for their expertise and tracked down by real Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal.

In this Amazon telling, our motley band comes off according to Sophie Gilbert writing in The Atlantic as "all aestheticized violence and infantile philosophizing, like a George Clooney Batman movie directed by Quentin Tarantino." Picture Marvel and grind-house images mashed up for thrills. 

The breezy philosophic questions are whether it’s OK to kill a Nazi since the police won’t do the job or does it take evil to fight evil? Shortly we have an answer: ‘the best revenge is revenge’. (Our hero Jonah says the only difference between superheros and villains is who sells the most costumes at Halloween.) The aesthetic here is comic book not history book, with good-natured satire of the hunters. They face off against sadistic, one-dimension Nazi foes who sieg heil and spout Nazi tropes as they plot the 4th Reich with their U.S. leader, The Colonel, played by Lena Olin. One of her evil-doers, Biff, makes your mouth curl. He’s an oily southern weasel, risen to Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, a Nazi hiding in plain sight (the droll Dylan Baker, below).

We meet Biff in the series opener on a day he starts as genial American family guy and ends as killing machine like his golden era days as butcher of a German camp committing mass murder in the backyard of his Chevy Chase mega-mansion.

The setting-in-chief is not Washington D.C., however, but graffiti-laden, psychedelic NYC of the 1970’s, in which one hunter stands in for the Black Power movement and another for the PTSD’d Vietnam war vets who were part of 70’s atmospherics.

Logan Lerman (at left, below, of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Percy Jackson films) is our chief protagonist, playing teen comic book junkie Jonah Heidelbaum in the manner of Spiderman’s Peter Parker or maybe Robin with the genius intellect of Batman. Jonah is drawn into the Nazi hunter ring to avenge the murder of his Safta (grandma) Ruth (Jeannie Berlin, below, right). She was a Holocaust survivor with a secret life of her own.

Following Ruth's funeral, Jonah is taken up by Hunters' impresario (and Bruce-Wayne-rich) Meyer Offerman, who slips back and forth between professorial Jewish grandpa and mob boss, a mensch* of a juicy character for Al Pacino (center l, below) to chew on.

The hunters gang was assembled by Meyer with the aid of a Jewish matchmaker with a weaponized rolodex, each agent’s backstory to be unwrapped in time. Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) plays a washed-up actor whose foppish impersonation skills sort of work for their capers, but a Jewish Daniel Craig he is not. The weapons experts, Murray and Mindy Markowitz (Saul Rubinek and Carol Kane) are a likable old married duo whom we come to understand through flashbacks to their war-time horrors. A British nun (Kate Mulvany) is grim and mean, which is cleared up by a peak at her survivor tale; she was one of many Jewish children sent to hide in Catholic institutions, where this child was deprived of supper by the nuns until she threw away her mezuzah** and bowed to Catholic dictate.

Along with hunters and Nazis is law enforcement, a non-force here. Jonah sits with an officer he wishes would find his Safta’s murderer and grumbles: "All you're doing is sitting around circle jerking to police sketches of Son of Sam." It was well-meaning police who didn't get the job done that inspired the hunters in the first place; the gang are now under investigation as their output of dead Nazis piles up. FBI agent Millie Norris (Jerrika Hinton, above) is the only one sifting clues to figure out which guys are bad and which are good, as a Nazi resurrection takes shape.

The chapters proceed from one bizarre Nazi take-down to the next ("shalom motherf---er; it’s mitzvah***, not murder!") interspersed with snapshots of concentration camps that are the sobering origin material for hunter gang-bangs. Jonah has become their code-breaker, using superpowers of his own. A character twist at the end doesn’t quite work — a lame effort, perhaps, to make sense of how ordinary people are anesthetized into idol worship and then undergo a heart-opening reversal. As this is comic-book-land, not psychological or historical analysis, we want our heroes and evil-doers sharp as razor-blades; this change-about sits awkwardly near the end of the series, though it does help to un-confuse Meyer’s strange connection to Jonah’s beloved Safta Ruth.

One device drew special ire from the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum: a game of chess in which each player/piece taken off the board is killed. Writer/showrunner David Weil uses arresting images of mechanical game-pieces on a chess board as episode openers but what dismayed Auschwitz staff was a chess board laid out on a concentration camp field peopled with real-life victims. ‘Death chess’ (below) was dubbed “dangerous foolishness and caricature” ...Auschwitz was full of horrible pain…we honor the victims by preserving factual accuracy”, say its reps.

Weil (below), whose own grandmother survived Auschwitz, says what wasn’t 100% true was in the vein of truth — it might-could have been true. He uses irony and satire to depict his 1970’s neon pop culture protagonists and villains contrasting them with life-like Holocaust flashbacks; the shift in tone and grayed-out color show the atrocities that impel the hunt. Hunters, Weil says, is a tribute to his own grandmother and meant to counter Holocaust revisionism; it’s a lesson to his own computer game generation for whom the story of the torture and industrialized murder of millions might be some old wives-tale lying in the dustbin of modern antisemitism.

My own reaction to this mish-mosh of jerky plotting and computer-game-ish nonsense ranged from annoyance to affection (I’ll take that Pacino Jewish Grandpa). If there’s a worry, it’s the goody-box of ideas it offers for rabid far-righters to imitate. But Hunters plain grew on me; it has lots of charm and wit, and serious importance enough to keep you going. In this case the bits and pieces outweigh the whole.

* mensch: man of honor, stalwart

**mezuzah: small rectangular box posted on doorways — it holds bible verses on a slip of parchment that follow the commandment ‘to write the words of God on the gates and doorposts of your house’

***mitzvah: good deed, commandment

Amazon/Paramount's TOM CLANCY'S JACK RYAN series proves the best of the bunch

I thought I'd never want to see another iteration of Jack Ryan -- that Tom Clancy character who has already "graced" (I use the word very loosely) a plethora of middling films, from The Hunt for Red October through Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears (better than middling) and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.

And then comes along an entire cable TV series featuring this character back in action and -- what-do-you-know? -- it is, by a long shot, the best of the lot.

TOM CLANCY'S JACK RYAN, now streaming via Amazon Prime, is a remarkably smart, beautifully-paced eight-episode series that will take you a little over six hours to finish. It is more than worth the time spent. Although the subject is (as usual with Clancy) espionage, war and terrorism (this time Islamic style), what we get here, thanks to showrunners Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland, is a much more nuanced look at Islam, terrorism and its participants -- both the willing and the unwilling -- as well as an extremely exciting, suspenseful and well-written, -directed, acted- and (especially) -plotted tale.

One of the many important things that distinguishes this Jack Ryan offering is the way in which it allows us to see and begin to feel from the perspective of all the participants -- the various governments, police, terrorists and their families -- in short, all the actors on both sides of events. When a particular family (or part of it) is finally rescued from within a huge array of refugees about to take their chance on "boating" across the Mediterranean to possible safety or death, it lingers long and hard on all those refugees left behind, forcing us to at least consider their fate, before moving on to more "adventure."

It also observes important differences between the terrorists and how they treat humanity at large and in particular. While the series comes down, of course, on the side of America and against the terrorists, it does not shy away from letting us see how and why these terrorists evolved. Series star John Krasinski (shown at top and above, left) also makes the best Jack Ryan yet, using his goofy face and sexy body to charm us, even as he helps turn his character into something as finely nuanced as is the series itself.

Wendell Pierce (above) provides his usual sterling support as Ryan's new boss; Abbie Cornish (below) is fine as his maybe girlfriend; Ali Suliman (bottom, right) makes a worthy and sometimes extremely frightening and real villain; and Dina Shihabi (bottom, left) is alternately delicate and iron-spined as the wife who must makes a sudden and permanent life choice.

Best of all is how speedy and smart are the many fine action scenes. The directors, who include Patricia Riggen and Daniel Sackheim, and the writers (six of them) don't waste our time but instead cut to what's important, over and over again. There is barely any scene here that is overlong. The series left me extremely satisfied and ready for more. Which we'll get eventually via Season Two.

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan streams now via Amazon Video, where it is free to Prime members.

Light, short, fun and an easy binge: Josh Billig and Chris Martin's cute little DRAMAWORLD

TrustMovies has never seen a South Korean TV show, but he is a big fan of that country's often excellent motion pictures, so he thought he'd take a look at a new series available on Netflix streaming called DRAMAWORLD. What a surprise! It's very charming and a little silly but so bubbly, inventive and good-natured that it's hard to resist.

A college-age girl -- Liv Hewson (above) -- who's addicted to a South Korean soap opera and not a little attracted to its leading man (as played by Sean Dulake, below, who can blame her?) gets magically pulled into the world of the series and becomes a "facilitator" to both the "drama" and its characters.

Each segment lasts anywhere between eleven and eighteen minutes, so you can see the whole ten-episode shmear in two easy sittings. The casting is swell, the plot ridiculous-but-enticing, and the whole idea and execution so charmingly managed that by the time it's over you may very well be as addicted as is our heroine.

Created by Josh Billig and Chris Martin and a co-financed by the U.S., South Korea and China, Dramaworld is one of those little cable/Internet oddities that just might catch on bigtime. A production of Viki, you can watch it there, or on Netflix.

Short take: Amazon's HAND OF GOD is better than you've heard -- but will it matter much....

...since Amazon may not be renewing the show? Very well cast, acted and directed (the writing is mostly serviceable), this series is dark and odd -- two adjectives that by themselves (or in tandem with other, more positive descriptive words) can prove popular, but when used together often have folk (critics especially) running for the hills.  HAND OF GOD, produced by Amazon Studios, while nowhere near as good as The Leftovers (one of the few dark and odd shows that critics have embraced and audiences are warming to slowly), is much better than you've probably heard.

It stars Ron Perlman (shown above: Hellboy, where art thou?!) and on poster, top, as a high-powered and very corrupt judge in a fictional town located in the environs of Northern California's tech industry, who, when his son (Johnny Ferro, below) tries to commit suicide but ends up in a coma, undergoes some sort of religious conversion and becomes hell-bent (or possibly god-driven) to find out why and who was responsible.

Largely the work of lead writer and co-producer Ben Watkins, the series boasts quite a cast of characters -- most of them greedy and nefarious, but acted juicily and savvily enough to keep us entertained. These include Dana Delany as the judge's wife (shown on poster, top), Emayatzy Corinealdi as his mistress, and Andre Royo (one of the treasures of The Wire) as the Mayor of the town (shown below, left).

Also in the mix are "fun couple," Julian Morris (below, right) and Elizabeth McLaughlin (below, left), playing respectively an ersatz "preacher" and his "moll," whose antics move the plot along in ways expected and not so, and a hunky Garret Dillahunt (shown at bottom), essaying the role of a felon who's found Jesus and is more than happy to murder again and again for the sake of his "redeemer."

I am not certain that Amazon is moving ahead with the series, so, even though it ended with multiple jolts and surprises, we may not be able to follow any further the antics of these greedy, money-guzzling creeps (who, from time to time, show us certain slightly redeeming characteristics underneath all the sleaze). While, at ten hours, the show did grow occasionally repetitive and even annoying, given the back-and-forth waffling of the Perlman character's "religion," still, I found these hours infinitely more interesting that those of the more popular but tiresomely paint-by-numbers, The Man in the High Castle.

That first-and-maybe-only season of Hand of God is available now via Amazon. Prime members can stream it free of charge.

Amazon's most popular series so far: Frank Spotnitz's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE

Give THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE a few points for having a fascinating subject: What might have happened had Germany and Japan won World War II (for whatever reason, Italy and Mussolini are thoroughly left out of the equation). That subject must be credited in large part to the late, great sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, and his original novel. What show-runner and lead series writer, Frank Spotnitz (shown below) has done is to dumb things down and attenuate them -- for more intelligent audiences, at least -- to something near the breaking point.

Gazes are held far, far too long, the camera lingers on important moments until you'll want to scream, "I get it!" and what appears, in this initial season, at least, is such a drawn-out and rather paltry story that, after ten episodes and around ten hours of time, you could have finished any number of much better novels (or other cable series) in the meantime.

But if you don't mind the very obvious story-telling, along with the kind of coincidence that boggles an intelligent adult's brain, by all means give this show a shot. It has proven the most popular of any of Amazon's cable TV/streaming creations so far -- outdoing even the fine, awards-laden Transparent and the unusual, quietly provocative series, Mozart in the Jungle. But, as we've long been told, there is simply no accounting for (mainstream) taste, so if this is your bowl of cherries, dig in. But be prepared to spit out, regularly and often, the pits.

The story has to do with a resistance effort on America's west coast, controlled by Japan; on the east coast, controlled by Nazi Germany; and in and out of the so-called neutral territory, located in the middle. There is also a series of movies being produced (above) -- by whom and for whom is noticeably unclear -- that purport to show an alternative view of what might have happened, had the Allies won the war, and that maybe show the future, to boot.

"And...?" you might whisper under your breath, as episode after episode piles up, involving various kinds of betrayals in which the good guys/gals and bad guys/gals begin to overlap. How the U.S.A. has been reorganized to fit the Nazi and Japanese desires is certainly interesting in itself, but the direction is so slow and heavy-handed that this leaches out much of the suspense and enjoyment.

The plot machinations may keep you going, however, and the acting is as good as it can be, given the rather ham-handed and slovenly execution. In the lead role, Alexa Davalos (two photos up) makes a spunky and highly-put-upon heroine, while Rupert Evans (at right, above, with DJ Qualls) plays her somewhat-too-whiny boyfriend and Luke Kleintank (below, left) provides a sexy, conflicted, not-quite-hero.

In the actual lead role is the excellent British actor Rufus Sewell (standing, below), who, as the Nazi-in-charge, brings most of the low-key pizazz to the proceedings.

A sub-plot involving a sleazy antiques dealer and his relationship to a wealthy Japanese couple offers some of the more interesting moments. But little comes of this by the first season's end. (That's Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa -- below, right -- as one of the "good" Nipponese.)

As with almost all of these new cable series, there is not an ounce of closure by the finale (the producers obviously hoped for a sequel; given the popularity so far, I think they'll get their wish. Congratulations are in order, I guess, but this is one sequel with which I shall not be bothered.

The Man in the High Castle (the title refers to a much blabbed-about-but-nowhere-to-be-found character involved with those bizarre "alternate universe" movies) streams on Amazon. It's free if you are an Amazon Prime member.

Amazon streaming: MOZART IN THE JUNGLE -- a loose, lovable and very smart little series

For several years now Netflix has been hailed as the new "content provider" that -- in addition to offering its usual DVD and Blu-ray discs for rental, as well as tons of movies and TV series to stream -- is creating its own first-rate series such as House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and the recent and brilliant Daredevil. Lately, however, Amazon,  the behemoth we all love to hate, is making its own inroads into original content, with the award-winning Transparent and a bunch of other new, how-did-these-get-here-so-fast? series, among which MOZART IN THE JUNGLE is most definitely worth your time. (A recent issue of New York magazine profiled Amazon's sudden explosion into original series with an excellent article you might want to read -- if you haven't already.)

Having found Transparent a wonderfully rich example of original, unusual dramedy, TrustMovies moved on recently to this newer series and was very quickly hooked. Mozart in the Jungle seems to me an almost perfect example of what Amazon Studios (the "content" arm of the behemoth) seems intent on providing: original content that, while nowhere near close to blockbuster/ mainstream level, will give a certain smaller segment of sophisticated television viewers exactly the kind of thing for which they're always searching.

Mozart... offers up a smart plot situated in a venue that neither TV, movies nor practically any source from which we get our "drama" has cared to go -- that of the big-city symphony orchestra: that "jungle" of the title. The brain-child of a most creative threesome: Roman Coppola, (above, left), Jason Schwartzman (above, right) and Alex Timbers (shown at right) (based on the book by Blair Tindall, Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music), the series should be a shoo-in for anyone who's ever been involved in the classical music scene.

Yours truly worked at New York City's Philharmonic Hall -- now Avery Fisher Hall -- for several years back in the 1960s. But even if you have never been involved with symphonies and the like, the series is well-executed enough to pull you in. Watching it made me realize, among many other things, that despite how much has changed in the intervening decades, much remains the same.

Prime amongst those things that never seem to change is the necessity of fundraising -- above almost everything else. Wait: forget "almost." Fundraising is all. The person responsible for this on Mozart... is Gloria Windsor, played by Broadway veteran Bernadette Peters (above, left), who -- as do literally all the actors on the show -- turns her character into a multifaceted surprise and delight.

Mozart's creators understand quite well how conducting, performing in and running a symphony orchestra is full of compromise, no matter how dedicated to "art" are the people involved. These would include especially the symphony's new conductor, Rodrigo, a role just about perfect for the charismatic Mexican actor Gabriel García Bernal, who here gives maybe his best performance yet, as the bizarre-but-fully-dedicated enfant terrible who wants to take this orchestra to a new plateau.

Rodrigo's relationship to the conductor he is replacing (a marvelous turn by Malcolm McDowell, above) is a complicated one, and as the series progresses, this becomes more focused, specific, funny and moving.

The orchestra itself is composed of a raft of smart and talented actors -- from Mark Blum and Deborah Monk to Saffron Burrows (at right) as the crack violist and Lola Kirke (below) as a young oboist hoping to break into the ranks of the anointed. How the latter achieves this -- and then doesn't -- provides some of the surprise and believa-bility, coupled to the kind of charm and entertainment that makes for the series' great success. As befits a show brought to life by the likes of Mr. Schwartzman, Mozart... is above all loose and lively, never underscor-ing its points nor pushing too hard.

Mozart in the Jungle treats its characters -- virtually all of them -- as living, breathing, complicated human beings, whose needs and desires often conflict with those of their nearest and dearest -- not to mention with what they themselves sometimes want.

The series also addresses class and economics, and while it comes down firmly on the side of the underdogs and "art" over the wealthy and corporate, it never handles this in the usual obvious and stupidly facile fashon. Mozart's creators understand the complications of living in the real world and what this means to the idea of creation and compromise.

Victory, as is only sometimes (and not often enough) the case, goes to those who can best roll with the punches -- a scenario beautifully demonstrated by the final episode in this first season.

The show is also unafraid to introduce an oddball new character for a one-time appearance -- Wallace Shawn (above) is one example -- or offer up a memorable supporting turn from another who appears only now and again, such as the beautiful and charismatic Nora Arnezeder (below: remember Paris 36?).

Shows like Mozart... don't set the world afire. That's not their job. Rather they appeal to to those of us who want something different but of high quality in both its artistic ambitions and entertainment quotient. This series delivers on both levels. It's streamable now, only via Amazon, where Prime members can watch it free.