Hunters series review: Al Pacino hunting Nazis makes for gripping lockdown fodder
If you’re looking for a nice, cuddly box set that you can watch half-comatose under your anxiety blanket as the world unravels around you, Amazon Prime’s latest big-budget series Hunters probably isn’t for you.
It’s about Nazis, for one thing, and someone gets shot in the head approximately once every three minutes. Set predominantly in 1977 New York, it follows a group of vigilantes who are on the hunt for Nazis who escaped justice after World War Two, and are hiding in plain sight as they plot to bring about the Fourth Reich. A
s the group pick off their individual targets, a wider plot is revealed which puts the whole city in danger.
Al Pacino puts in an unexpected turn as the deceptively kindly Jewish patriarch at the head of the Nazi-hunting operation, but he doesn’t outshine the relative unknowns taking on the other leading roles.
This is a true ensemble cast, and part of the fun is unravelling the backstories and motivations of each member of the rag-tag crew – not all of whom are Jewish – as the series moves along.
Flashbacks to Auschwitz and Buchenwald provide the stark emotional backdrop to the action scenes, reminding us that this might be bad-ass arse-kicking, but it’s bad-ass arse-kicking for the good of humanity.
Hunters is also peppered with surreal, comedy vignettes where the characters re-enact a retro commercial or dance to a disco track for a couple of minutes, some of which are a little awkward, but you have to fill the time between people getting shot in the head somehow.
It’s not exactly one for the ages, but you’ll be gripped by the end of the first episode and the ten hour-long instalments will keep you occupied for many a lonely lockdown eve. Well, at least two.