Hunters

Look, I'm not a Trump supporter so just forget about that right now. No politics involved here, I just don't think this show is very good. The Nazis are such over the top cartoon supervillains that it's hard to take them at all seriously. This is made painfully clear from the very first extremely over the top scene. The tone is all over the place. Sometimes it seems like they're going to take the subject matter very seriously, but more often than not it starts leaning into a weird mix of comic book movie (and no I don't have a problem with comic book movies) and some kind of weird parody of exploitation films. It's all very campy, over the top, and packed with comic book references for some reason. The protagonist kid's introductory story even feels like a superhero origin story.

I don't know, I guess I was just expecting something more serious here. Something dark and disturbing like Mindhunters. This feels more like some producer at Amazon said "people loved The Boys. Let's make it more like that!" and it just doesn't feel like it fits with this subject matter. Sorry, it's not for me *shrug*

5/10

I really enjoyed this season until about episode 7/8, where it took one of the worst plot twists Iv ever seen. I finished it 24 hours ago and I'm still angry at what I watched.

Hunters is about some Nazi hunters in the late 70's in New York City that find out that there are hundreds of high ranking Nazi officials that are living among them. The hunters then go hunt them down and bring justice to them and also stop their new genocidal plans. I really wasn't sure what to expect from Hunters with all the mixed reviews, I've never seen a show so split between people liking it or not. After watching season 1, I thought it was a pretty good show that was absolutely worth watching! Now after finishing season two it became even that much better. Season two was fantastic. I don't understand what some of these negative reviewers wanted? There's plenty of action, comedy, drama, mystery, twists, etc., to please most people. It's too bad it was only two seasons long but at least it didn't go out with a cliffhanger.

Hunters was actually a pretty fun show. I was looking forward to seeing this after watching the trailers and seeing that Al Pacino was involved but then after reading so many mixed reviews my expectations tempered a bit. Well, after really enjoying the first season I was for season two, I'm about halfway through right now and it's even better than the first. It's too bad that they're only doing two seasons overall but that might actually be perfect for a show like this. You don't want it to overstay its welcome and hang around just for the sake of hanging around. Id definitely recommend if you haven't seen this yet, just give yourself enough time because you're going to want to binge it.

The first couple episodes of Amazon Prime Original series "Hunters" really wowed me. I appreciated the mix of chilling, somber sobriety about the terrible deeds of the Holocaust (though the director went to some effort to create fictional Holocaust events in lieu of real historical ones) and the kind of funky elements of the over the top 70s America. I thought the mix was something never seen before, although the flavor of it was much like Tarantino films. I got "Inglorious Bastards" vibes several times.

While me enjoyment of these elements together persisted throughout several episodes, the grating personalities of several of the actors (why does Jonah curse so much? What's the deal with Joe? What does Roxy even do?) really started to wear me out, and much of the commercial-like inserts didn't do much for me at all. I questioned their humor as well as their content and their delivery. By some time it felt like I couldn't get behind the main characters or their mission anymore. There wasn't much attempt at nuance for the German side and it shouldn't have been ok for the deaths to happen as they did, either for the characters or for us as viewers. I wish there was more dialogue about it.

Unfortunately "Hunters" did feel like a transplant of 2020 values and liberal attitudes onto 1970s dressed characters. Because of this many character dynamics lost dramatic tension and resolved themselves too easily. Actually much of the series was resolved too easily. Jonah solves puzzles without any effort st exactly the right moment. Twists happen just when they need to in the season. People stay alive who probably shouldn't. Lots of plots folded like houses of cards.

Throughout all this though, Al Pacino was stellar. He brought a believability to his character and stabilized most of the others. I wish there was a stronger antagonist for him to play against.

The assassin for the Nazis named Travis was an interesting character. It also felt like he didn't have a proper rival. I wish he did.

Decent show. Good visuals. Good soundtrack. Questionable morals, inconsistent tone, too much cliche. Highly original, sometimes wonderfully dynamic but too much flatlining to be great. Such great materials and many very good attempts to use them, but not quite as well thematically polished as I wish it would be.