Reviews

So. Just to make clear I'm not a hater. After giving Hunters a "one star" rating, this series merits a 9.

Again, a great hook. A brilliant and warm military veteran, now CIA analyst, gets drawn into subterfuge and violence inherent in chasing the "bad guys" in the interests of keeping America safe.

The difference - these bad guys are human beings. There are reasons for them being messed up - but the complexity of the bad guys never deteriorates into some politically correct pablum.

Where there are strong female characters (Abbie Cornish as the doctor/love interest and Noomi Rapace as the German intelligence agent are awesome) they never feel that they were put there on a sort of "token" basis. They are just integral parts of a great storyline...

Depth, occasional humor, good acting, likeable but flawed characters - an easy 8 or 9 on the rating scale - I bumped it up just because, well, other TV is sooooo terrible that when you see something good, it just seems that much better.

And Hunters still sucks (ok, so maybe I'm a little bit of a hater).

This program is a little bit hypnotizing at first - Nazi hunters in Brooklyn - a kindly young Jewish man who's grandmother is murdered by a Nazi, and who yearns for revenge... great hook. But as you watch it, if you pay attention, you begin to hate everyone in the movie.

The plot and dialogue are grossly simplistic and manipulative. Unlike Ozark which has a dark complexity, in Hunters, there is no "there" there. It's all slight of hand stuff... devoid of substance.

But, I guess, if you like something simpler on the mind that Walking Tall or Death Wish, this might be for you.

I'll watch Ozark and Peaky Blinders. Even Third Rock From the Sun shows more depth of character.

No spoiler. No hyperbole. Just a really poorly acted and poorly written work. In fairness, the lack of any reasonable budget is palpable throughout, with underwhelming sets and obvious inability to spend even modest money on scientific fact-checking.

Any positive reviews are clearly either family or Canadian members of the industry because there is simply nothing redeeming about this.

Acting - like a CBC drama series - wooden, two dimensional and forced throughout.

Writing - hackneyed and confused. The conflict between the two male leads is based on a simplistic less-than-made-for-TV concept, which only gets worse as their conflict continues.

As stated, the set design is cheap and the shuttle looks like something from Lost-in-Space - I kept waiting for someone to exclaim "Danger Will Robinson" (which, actually would have added an element of camp humour to an exceedingly dull and vapid film).

So - terrible in every sense. Nothing - and I mean nothing - to redeem it.