Tag Archives: AMC

Monsieur Spade and the Lost Opportunity

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Monsieur Spade

I recently finished watching Monsieur Spade on AMC and I’m sorry to say I didn’t enjoy it all that much. It’s a real lost opportunity because I absolutely love the premise of the show.

As a young man I read Dashiell Hammit and the Maltese Falcon is a happy memory indeed. I’ve enjoyed watching many a movie with a noir theme and who doesn’t love the hardboiled detective Sam Spade and his many imitators?

What went wrong with Monsieur Spade? Let’s discuss.

Premise

The premise is c’est magnifique. Sam Spade is retired and now living in the small town of Bozouls in the south of France. We imagine his peaceful existence won’t stay that way for very long and we are right. He came to the region years ago to deliver the daughter of a client to her reported father. While trying to do so he met and married a wealthy French woman, Gabrielle, who has since died and left Monsieur Spade her vineyards.

The father of the girl, who is now a teenager, is a miscreant of the worst sort and involves Sam and others in the town in an all but impossible to follow plot involving a boy-genius and so many other parties it boggles the old gray matter of your narrator.

Noir Dialog and nothing but Noir Dialog

We certainly expect Monsieur Spade to deliver laconic lines and always with a cool demeanor. But do we expect every single line of dialog to be a battle of noir? I don’t. It’s not only Sam who talks like this but the rest of the cast as well. It’s a figurative battle of pithy utterances, one after the other, batted back and forth like a ball at a Wimbledon tennis match. Boom, bang, smash, crush.

Sam is never perturbed; he always knows exactly what to say and he’s not alone. The entire cast delivers nothing but noir and more noir.

“It’s raining, Sam.”

“Here I thought it was a poodle with a full bladder on the balcony.”

“Poodles are German, not French.”

“How can they tell?”

It never stops. Just one pithy comment after the next and it gets annoying all too quickly. It was great for about half an episode but it loses its charm quickly. We need fully developed characters who behave like real people.

Nonsensical Plot

Paraphrasing a laconic Spartan after a long speech entreating their aid in battle; “We no longer remember the first half of your plot, and thus can make nothing of the remainder.” There is a lot to process. I’m not going to get into it all but give a few examples.

The supposed monk who seemed like he was going to be an important character. He shows up, kills half-a-dozen nuns, one of whom was the most interesting character in the series, and then vanishes until the finale, supposedly taken off by French gendarmes to Paris. When did he get back? Who is he? Where did he come from? None of it is answered.

There are dozens of moments and characters like this. Characters make no sense and act irrationally at best. The entire side plot with the singer and her drunken husband didn’t further the plot in any way and his death seemed so unnecessary. Likewise, the death of the young English spy came out of nowhere and just baffled me.

The young girl suddenly knows details about her life she previously did not but no explanation as to how she learned them. I could go on but I shall cease in the name of brevity.

Sam Spade Torturing a Guy

I honestly don’t like a protagonist who tortures someone, particularly when the character already knows all the information he needs. It’s not a good look. Why the guy was there to kill Monsieur Spade in the first place made no sense.

The Ending

I can’t even really describe the baffling ending to the show. A character shows up from nowhere, never seen before, who knows everything, and solves the problem, I guess, sort of, I’m not really sure? Wow, that was satisfying. I won’t go into detail. It was terrible.

Conclusion

Give us a season two! Let the actors act like people instead of noir caricatures. Give me a simpler plot and let Monsieur Spade solve it, not some random third-party interloper. What a terrible disappointment this show turned out to be.

Tom Liberman

Lucky Hank and Scene over Story

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Lucky Hank

I just wrapped up the first season of Lucky Hank and I’m quite sad to say I didn’t much care for the show. It features Bob Odenkirk who recently wrapped up the critically acclaimed and audience beloved Better Call Saul.

In Lucky Hank, Odenkirk plays William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the head of the English department at Railton College. He is deeply traumatized by a failed relationship with his absentee father and somewhat world-weary in general.

Odenkirk Benefit of the Doubt

Sentiment for Bob Odenkirk as an actor is on a high note because of his outstanding performance in Better Call Saul. I suspect many of the good reviews about Lucky Hank are related to this rather than a honest reflection of the show itself.

Critics and audience reviews are relatively mixed with some people loving the show completely while others agree with my assessment, it’s not very good.

Why is Lucky Hank Bad?

I think the underlying issue with Lucky Hank is a reliance on entertaining the audience with individual scenes and quips from the characters. I’ve spoken about this sort of thing before in regards to The Gilded Age and Succession.

Essentially, someone thinks up a good one liner for Hank or one of his cohorts, and then designs an entire scene to setup that line. It’s often something witty or cruel with the intention of getting a laugh from the audience.

The problem is that these scenes come and go without tying into a broader storyline. The audience may or may not laugh, I didn’t, but the scenes create plot points then completely abandoned. It creates issues with the timeline as well. I don’t know from one episode to the next how much time has passed because they are desperate to get in a scene, even though it doesn’t really fit.

One example is Hank’s mysterious pains which cause him terrible agony. This is used at the doctor’s office and a couple of other places in early episodes and then never mentioned again. This leaves me wondering, hey what happened with his pains?

Another example is Lily’s restaurant scene where a couple next to them is caught in an affair and the man must move to her table. She uses this moment to tell the man everything she’s been feeling about Hank. It’s such a contrived way of doing it. It felt unreal, stupid. Another similar thing happens with the real-estate agent. Everything is forced and doesn’t feel organic to the character or the scene.

A bigger example is Hank’s traumatic meltdown at the faculty dinner party he and his wife host. This is a painful, awful, scene. By the next episode it seems to be completely forgotten. No one really mentions it again, it was as if a writer decided to give Odenkirk a big dramatic scene and then forgot about it.

Horrible People

There really isn’t anyone likeable in Lucky Hank and that’s a problem. I don’t mind a few unlikable characters but it’s difficult to find anyone here worthy of any investment of my feelings.

The bartender/adjunct professor Meg seems like a good egg until she completely betrays Hank’s daughter by sleeping with her husband. Not to mention she wanted to sleep with Hank and betray his wife as well.

Friendly professor Tony seems like a good guy at first glance but let’s take a look at his main episode, which followed Hank’s meltdown.

They are at a conference and the idea is to portray Hank as a self-absorbed jerk and Tony as a decent fellow. The reality is that Tony just witnessed Hank having an enormous crisis and doesn’t even mention it. All he’s concerned about is his own lecture. He’s not a caring friend. He’s horrible.

Bad Stereotyping

Stereotyping on this show isn’t quite as awful a problem as on The Ark but it’s particularly bad here in regards to Hank’s son-in-law Russel and the poetry professor Gracie.

It appears the show writers were concerned about being labeled as a Woke show and thus decided to make Gracie the butt of every joke. She’s the anti-woke version of a feminist. She’s awful in every regard. Meanwhile, perhaps wary of being labeled anti-woke, Russel is the hapless, moronic male character often depicted in Woke shows.

The reality is that both of these characters are everything that Woke isn’t supposed to be. We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. People are unique and have their strengths and flaws. They are real people with problems but also good qualities. Gracie and Russel are written flat, boring, and frankly offensive. Neither one comes across as remotely real or relatable. They are there for people to make fun of them.

Conclusion

I just didn’t believe any of the characters. None of them come across as fully-formed. The dialog, the scenes, the story, it’s all just jammed into place trying to get a laugh here or there but not tell a complete story.

I didn’t like it. Maybe you did.

Tom Liberman

Dark Winds a Bad Ending to a Good Show

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Dark Winds

I just finished watching the last episode of the first season of the Dark Winds series on AMC and came away more than a little disappointed. Endings. They’re important.

Dark Winds is six-part series set in the 1970s which follows tribal police officer Joe Leaphorn as he attempts to solve both a bank robbery and a murder on the Navajo reservation. I very much enjoyed the show’s first four episodes although came away moderately disappointed after the fifth episode. It was the final episode that really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Let’s get into it.

Dark Winds Plot

The plot of Dark Winds revolves around Joe Leaphorn in his attempts to solve both the murders and bank robbery. The bank robbers escaped by helicopter onto Navajo lands and that puts the onus on Leaphorn to solve the crime. Meanwhile, the murders, while occurring on Navajo land, count as federal crimes meaning the FBI has jurisdiction.

The relationship between Leaphorn, played ably by Zahn McClarnon, and belligerent FBI Agent Noah Emmerich, played with great aplomb by Noah Emmerich, is key to the investigative part of the story. Emmerlich inserts a spy into the tribal police force to help solve the investigation but Leaphorn quickly figures it out and enlists Jim Chee, played by Kiowa Gordon, as an ally.

The Plot Isn’t the Story

Dark Winds does an excellent job, at least until the final episode, of telling a story and using the plot to drive it. The real stories are the death of Leaphorn’s son in an explosion at a refinery on the land and the general mistreatment of the Navajo people by the United States government.

Sure, the murders and the bank robbery drive much of the action but the real story is far more interesting. A young, pregnant Navajo girl is saved from forced sterilization by Leaphorn’s wife, a nurse at the hospital. Forced sterilization on Native Americans is just one of many shameful parts of United States history.

In addition, the Navajo activist who committed the bank robbery was the victim of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of teachers, priests, and nuns at boarding schools children were forced to attend away from their parents. The tormented Hoski, played by Jeremiah Bitsui, carries out his criminal acts largely as vengeance for both his own mistreatment and that of his people.

The dovetailing of Hoski’s storyline of rage and Leaphorn’s own grief over the loss of his son is the real story here. It’s a tale of anger and an inability to let go of hate. A path both Leaphorn and Hoski share at the beginning of the series.

The real stories of Dark Winds are told at a leisurely pace and we see them slowly unfold as we get to know the interesting characters. It draws us in and holds us.

The Last Episode of Dark Winds

Then, in the later part of the penultimate episode and the entirety of the final episode, all the good work is abandoned with a ridiculous series of events, stunning coincidences, and one action scene after the next. It’s just a mess and the various characters act in inexplicable fashion. I’m not going to get into it all including the strange addition of the Mormon family hostages, it’s too much.

It’s all a setup for an intense scene between Leaphorn and Hoski. Hoski realizes all his rage has done nothing to help, on the contrary has caused more harm, more pain. Leaphorn ostensibly tries to convince Hoski to let go of the rage, go to prison, accept responsibility for his actions. In reality, Leaphorn is talking to himself, telling himself to let go of the anger over his son’s death.

Conclusion

The final confrontation between Leaphorn and Hoski is fine as is the denouement when Leaphorn finally releases his anger.

It’s everything in the last episode or so that leads up to that final which fails. These sorts of action scenes are what a lot of people want and I suspect many, if not most, people will enjoy the action-adventure end to the season. I did not.

I think everything might have led to the soul-searching climax with far fewer complications and a simpler story line. The finale left me deeply disappointed. All the good from the first four plus episodes was tainted.

That being said, the series is good and worth watching.

Tom Liberman