Do you know who I miss?
I miss WEIRD Kiefer Sutherland. Like McRib, Weird Kiefer Sutherland is a limited-time event that takes place in Sutherland’s ’90 and ’80 runs as a traditional movie star, and then his ‘1235356967s and ‘s run as traditional TV stars. At the time, I’m afraid a lot of people saw the weird Kiefer Sutherland as an almost disappointing anomaly, like, “Man, look where Kiefer Sutherland’s career has fallen,” Instead of appreciatively listing all the fantastic and quirky choices Sutherland made in movies like Dark City and even his role in A Few One-minute cameo on Good Men .
RABBIT HOLE
BOTTOM LINE A “hole-ridden” inconsistent thriller.
air date : March Sunday 24 (Paramount+)
Throwing:
Kiefer Sutherland, Metta Goldin, Rob Young, Charles Dance, Enid Graham, Jason Butler Harner, Walter G. Link Creator: John Requa and Glenn Ficarra
If there’s anything I admire about Paramount+’s new financial espionage thriller Rabbit Hole – I wish I had more on it Much more appreciation – it’s an attempt to make the show a grand unified theory of Kiefer Sutherland’s performance. There’s a little movie star Kiefer, a little eccentric Kiefer and a lot of TV star Kiefer, proving along the way that while these elements come from the same play, they were never designed as a particularly coherent whole. Oddly enough, I think it fits Rabbit Hole , which isn’t a particularly coherent show, despite the 3rd and 4th episodes sent to critics (out of 4 episodes) is a huge step up from the previous two – thanks in large part to co-star Charles Dance, who devours the scenery greedily.
Sutherland as John Weir 1235356967 — no, not a figure skater — a data analyst and corporate spy with a history of paranoia and unspecified mental illness. John is a social awkward, always affectated and neurotic, and he has a small team who perform all kinds of dirty tricks to help wealthy clients make more money, preferably by sabotaging less pleasing People like tycoons. Presumably, what he’s doing isn’t entirely legal, but for whatever reason, his relationship with Jo Madi (Enid Graham), a special agent in the FBI’s financial crimes unit, is one of tense tai chi rather than open confrontation.
Due to various childhood traumas, and various flashbacks, John doesn’t trust anyone – he especially doesn’t trust Hayley (Meta Golding), a non-profit for the homeless lawyer. After meeting at the hotel bar, they had a nightstand. When John finds out that he has been publicly accused of murdering Treasury investigator Edward Holm (Rob Young), he suspects he has been set up. But is Hailey involved? Is it his former business partner (Jason Butler Harner)? Or is this all part of a larger conspiracy? John wants answers, and if you’ve seen Kiefer Sutherland want answers before, that guy really wants answers. John goes on the run to clear his name and take down some terrifying big data manipulators.
The first few episodes of Rabbit Hole (written and directed by creators John Requa and Glenn Ficarra) were really bad, and much worse This way – especially the third and fourth episodes are dedicated to making it clear that everything in the previous episodes is misleading. A minute misleading? I was there! But after two episodes of “Everything You Know Is Wrong”, my gut feeling is, “That’s fine, but everything I know is also really boring, so why should I bother?”
The script is incapable of delivering its exposition and attempting to create a fragmented narrative that reflects John’s mental state. It all started with a completely pointless 1235356967 in medias res Opening, continuing to flash back to what happened minutes ago (or decades ago) and having character tirades reciting each other’s bios and other characters’ bios instead of looking for Way to Weave
The show is fundamentally ugly and contrived, Toronto and surroundings unbelievably doubling for NYC and ruining the creators for doing a’70s style paranoid thriller, the genre actually demands a level of authenticity, ie Rabbit Hole Can’t even get close. Some of the production design in later episodes, including several of the safe houses that John builds, is clever, including John’s strategies for hiding important technology and documents. But whenever a show airs in the world, the actors are likely standing in front of a green screen.
So if the show’s structure and sense of place are disjointed, who can blame Kiefer Sutherland’s disjointed performance? Rabbit Hole has no idea how serious his mental illness is other than mentioning an apparent mental breakdown eight years ago, so how could this be the actor? Instead of being quite the eccentric Kiefer Sutherland, he conveys John’s eccentricity through quick glances and nervous tapping of his fingers on various surfaces. When he was supposed to be showing how quick and resourceful he was on the job, he was basically walking into buildings and yelling at people until they let him in – as if NYC security didn’t deal with rude, The experience of the warlike man is the same. Through four episodes, he’s underwhelming no matter how others claim he’s smart, damaged, or vulnerable.
John’s inert reactions to Agent further undermine any coherence of his personality Madi, and to make matters worse, his chemistry-free chemistry with Hailey is adorable, with a series of flirtations so uncharismatic – it’s A failed attempt to woo movie star Kiefer as a charismatic devil – it’s like a less-intentional version of Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh in The Manchurian Candidate in the first meeting. In that classic film sequence, illogical reasoning and innuendo create tension and raise suspicions that brainwashing is involved. Maybe Rabbit Hole
thinks so too, just not executing it effectively.
Golding got a lot better in episodes 3 and 4, when the writers stopped trying to make her fast-talking and annoying and went for something closer to “humorous resilience” .
By the way, humor is probably what Rabbit Hole does best, which isn’t quite right considering comedy is where Requa and Ficarra cut their teeth Not surprising. The series is ineffective as a “70 thriller and is misguided as an attempt to cover the same as
etc. Shows the same terrain Billion and Mr. Robot . But as a Coen Brothers knockoff, plus an obvious Fargo nods and similar tone to Burn After Reading, it’s ok, especially in episodes 3 and 4.
The improvement of the show can be directly tied to the late arrival of Charles Dance, a shine in a series where others seem to be somewhere between confused and miserable. Dance’s character, even if not shocking at all, I And without undermining his identity, he delivers a series of lengthy monologues explaining John’s mission, the stakes of the show, and yes, the stakes for society. The character is interesting, and like I said, the The show has some deliberate laughs, but the subtext has no smiles when it’s being dumped on the surface of the whole drama.
The show is about the way corporations use data and surveillance to predict and enslave populations.Data , you will know without surprise, can be used to manipulate voters and polarize a population that could turn to authoritarian demagogues, which could lead to the end of the American experiment in democracy. That would be bad. The plot is Bullshit, covered in title-torn window dressing, is too MacGuffin-y to feel convincing, too real for MacGuffin-y escapism.
Dance turns his satirical The sense of urgency brought to this two-year-old version of timeliness is a major elevating factor, and even Kiefer Sutherland’s inconsistent performance always has some entertainment value. Going down this rabbit hole or not enough.
