'Hunters' Review: Groundbreaking Amazon show turns killing Nazis into a total mood
A king with his entourage of two knights, two rooks, two bishops, and a pawn, secretly and surreptitiously take the battle to the opposing side, taking down the white knights, one at a time, only to inch closer to the queen and call it a checkmate. No, we aren’t talking about a game of chess. But it is a game nevertheless; perhaps even like chess, where every move could change the outcome. Each of these chess pieces represents the team of hunters who have been on the receiving end for years and now have come back to seek justice.
This isn’t about revenge, mind you, but about liberation. It is also about letting the world know that what happened during the Third Reich cannot and will not happen again.
This game of the hunters and the hunted started decades ago and ended with the Second World War. But did it really end? 30 years later, the predators were back in the game, hiding in plain sight, under the facades of New York City’s rich and famous, until the formerly hunted turned into hunters and stared wiping them out one by one.
When Amazon dropped the news and the high-octane trailer of its upcoming drama thriller, ‘Hunters’, little did we expect that it would not just be a historical-fiction thriller but much, much more! Calling it a show is an understatement. It is an experience that takes you on a sensory joyride while making you unlearn everything you had ever learned, provoking your brain cells of how deep and dark those days were.
Without giving out any spoilers, let’s walk you through our experience of ‘Hunters’ before it makes its global launch.
For starters, let’s not talk about the plot and acting part of it. We all know what the story is. Or as the official synopsis says, “The story follows a diverse band of Nazi hunters living in 1977 New York City who discovered hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials are conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S. The eclectic team of titular hunters will set out on a bloody quest to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans.”
But what it doesn’t say is that every monologue becomes an iconic moment, every action scene intense. The script feels written with so much heart and soul, that the story gets under your skin and wants you to stay hooked onto the screen. So does the art and cinematography, but that’s a discussion for another time. For now, brace yourself to be transported through timelines from the '70s back to the late '30s and '40s, through the '50s and '60s. In simple words, this is a ride through generations of history, in the most dramatic and cinematic way that you can imagine!
Talking about acting, we all know what to expect when you have a legend like Al Pacino spearheading the team. We have seen him in more historical roles but Meyer Offerman is his latest best. His entourage of some of the television and movies’ best actors only make it the perfect bunch! Logan Lerman as Jonah Heidelbaum is a delight to watch. The ‘Percy Jackson’ star has matured and evolved like no other and you will never see Josh Radnor in the same light anymore after Lonny Flash. The others, namely, Kate Mulvany as Sister Harriet, Tiffany Boone as Roxy Jones, Carol Kane as Mindy Markowitz, Saul Rubinek as Murray Markowitz, Louis Ozawa Changchien as Joe Mizushima, Jerrika Hinton as Millie Malone, Greg Austin as Travis Leich, Dylan Baker as Biff Simpson, and Lena Olin as The Colonel, all look just perfect in their roles.
Based on an early preview of the first few episodes, all we can say is ‘Hunters’ is storytelling redefined and could become that perfect piece of art that will refuse to leave your memories for years to come. But, as it holds, there are miles to go before the hunters sleep and more predators to slay before they take over the jungle!
‘Hunters’ makes its global release on Friday, February 21, 2020, only on Amazon Prime.