Boy, it’s been a while since I’ve done a “Some Thoughts On…” post, but this is one that’s been lingering in my head ever since I finished Hunters several days ago, which is the new Amazon Prime series, so I just had to get my feelings on this show down. Aside from vague allusions to certain plot developments, this will be spoiler free. I should start out by saying that there are moments in Hunters that I think are totally brilliant, and hauntingly effective. It takes some big creative swings, and that is something I always admired. It’s just too bad that the overall experience is one of incredible frustration, one that at no point did I feel like I was in tune with what the show wanted to make me think and feel about its subject matter.
For those who don’t know, the basic setup here is that after the sudden and mysterious murder of his grandmother, a young Jewish man, Jonah (Logan Lerman), he ends up confiding in a friend of the family, Meyer (Al Pacino), a Holocaust survivor who turns out to be the head of a secret operation. The goal of that operation? To track down, and hunt Nazis who are living amongst us in the United States. Meyer and his colorful crew of misfits work together, and end up taking in Jonah as a new recruit, who is now desperate to find answers and purpose.
So, it’s essentially a story about revenge. There are precisely two ways to tell a story about revenge. You have one where the revenge is justified, encouraged, and the execution of that revenge is cathartic and fun. Think Kill Bill, John Wick, Mad Max, any number of rape-revenge films. The second type of revenge story is one where revenge is questioned, and made significantly more complicated from a moral standpoint. The path to seeking revenge is seen as futile, and one that will turn you into the same kind of monster that you are seeking revenge against. Think Blue Ruin, Death Sentence, and Park Chan-wok’s Vengeance Trilogy.
The big problem with Hunters is that it wants to do both of those stories. Jonah acts as our moral center, and for a vast majority of the ten episodes, he hesitates whenever an opportunity arises for him to commit an act of violence. He questions Meyer on his ethics, and the morality of having a group of people hunt down other people and kill them without due process. At the same time, it’s still a show about hunting Nazis, and the bad guys we follow in the series are so unquestionably evil that any attempt to discuss the morality of the situation sucks the fun out of the wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Speaking of the bad guys, there is also an element that made me very uncomfortable, and not in the way I think the people involved intended. Like I said, the Nazis in the series are all absolutely, intentionally, mustache-twirly evil, which is a fine enough choice, because…you know…Nazis. However, whenever it goes into flashbacks to memories of the Holocaust, the show will present a number of completely fictional atrocities. The most notorious of which is the human chess game, where Nazi officers force Jews from the concentration camp to participate in a human game of chess, where whenever a “piece” is out, the person is forced to kill the outed one with a blade. It’s exactly as horrific as it sounds, and while the other moments like this are not as extreme, this is a constant thing with the show.
It’s strange because I feel like you don’t have to make up terrible things for the Nazis to do because they have already committed some of the worst acts against humanity, like, literally ever. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum criticized the show for this very sequence, and it’s easy to understand why. The creator of the show, David Weil, who is also the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, responded saying something to the effect of how he didn’t want to take real people’s stories and put them on the screen, which I’m guessing is so that he doesn’t reignite past traumas. It’s an understandable defense, but I don’t think it totally holds water because by simply evoking the Holocaust to begin with, you are going to bring strong feelings out of people who may even just be tangentially connected to that atrocity, and I doubt depicting even more diabolical acts against Jews will help with that. It’s not even like these exaggerations veer into the fantastical, this show never goes full Wolfenstein, it keeps its foot firmly planted in reality.
This makes it even more odd when a certain plot development is revealed around mid-way through the show. I’ll give this away since it technically isn’t a spoiler for anything. It touches on Operation Paperclip, which is a secret program where the United States government brought in thousands of Nazi scientists, and gave them a whole new life in the country, as well as jobs in places like NASA, so that the Soviets don’t get their hands on them first. Their contributions led to many advancements, even the moon landing. Sounds ridiculous, right? Like another one of the show’s many exaggerations and comic book/exploitation film style embellishments? No, this is a very real thing that actually happened, and the show goes out of its way to tell you that it’s not made up, which I feel like it wouldn’t have to do had they been more truthful in their other depictions.
And then there’s the final episode. Again, I won’t get into detail about what exactly happens, but there is a twist regarding the nature of one of the main characters. It’s a choice I found rather baffling, and bordering on being a betrayal of what the series – I guess – stood for. I have seen some reactions online from people who were angry about the twist, and I can totally understand why. Though, I suppose an argument could be made for how the twist makes things more compelling and complex, but all it does is muddy the waters in the same way many of the previous creative choices in the series did. We won’t even know the full implications of that choice until the next season.
It certainly helps Hunters that for all its flaws – and frankly, I’d argue it’s because of those very flaws – that it is not boring to watch. It’s got a zany energy that keeps things engaging, and on top of that, the performances from the cast are fantastic across the board. Pacino and Lerman are as good as you’d expect from actors of their caliber, but the supporting players who make up the titular Hunters – Saul Rubinek, Carol Kane, Josh Radnor, Louis Ozawa, Kate Mulvany, and Tiffany Boone are all very good here. They bring a lot to their characters, they’re very likable, and it didn’t take long for me to buy into their dynamic and relationships, I found myself genuinely caring for this crew. I also have to give a special shoutout to Greg Austin, who is so good at playing the despicable Nazi lackey that works for the big bad that I might actually have a hard time not thinking about this performance whenever I see him in something else in the future. Even when the show was at its most frustrating, the actors kept me going. It’s a shame that the show doesn’t quite hold itself together. It tries to do everything, and ultimately ends up doing very little. I was entertained by it, but whether or not it’s enough to warrant a recommendation, I’m still not entirely sure. Perhaps I would if the ending weren’t so open ended – one of my biggest pet peeves is shows ending on cliffhangers when future seasons have not been officially confirmed. Given where the season ends, there might be something cool, but given the bizarre approach to the material, I don’t know if I have the patience for it, especially if it ends up going for five seasons, which David Weil says he has fully planned out. I really wanted to love this. The idea of Jordan Peele producing a show about hunting Nazis sounds great. How could you screw that up? For many moments, they absolutely don’t, but once it’s all said and done, it’s very much a mixed bag.