Hunted episode 1 review: Mort
New BBC spy drama, Hunted, from Frank Spotniz and the makers of Spooks gets off to a strong, if chilly start…
This review contains spoilers.
1.1 Mort
Meet Sam Hunter (Melissa George), polyglot spy, trained killer, and the best operative of morally dubious and well-funded private sector spooks company, Byzantium. Shot twice in the same day, once as an elaborately staged rug-pull on both her mark and the audience, once for real and quite probably by the people she works for, it’s fair to say that Hunter isn’t having the easiest of times.
Hunter’s not the kind of operative to let an assassination attempt stop her though. After a year’s recoup in a remote Scottish cottage (mostly spent running up hills in different hats and eating tinned pork) she’s back on the job, and looking for answers.
From the stylised Bond-style silhouetted opening credits to the preview of next week’s action, Sam Hunter is positioned as TV’s answer to Jason Bourne, a multi-lingual, neck-snapping, globe-trotting spook who’s been royally done over by her own people. Was it her boss, who greets her impromptu return from a year MIA with cool collection? Or her ex, whose baby she lost in utero during the attack on her life? Or any number of similarly slippery co-workers about whom we know next to nothing? At this stage, it’s impossible to hazard a guess, so sparingly is information dealt out in this opening episode.
One thing we do know about Hunter; she doesn’t mess around. She’s so hard-core she doesn’t even sleep in a bed, but sat upright on the floor in a part of the room she must have designated as 'flashback corner' because every time she sinks into the spot, she relives an out-of-focus traumatic childhood memory.
What’s immediately impressive about Hunted are the locations and moody, atmospheric direction. A series of hazy orange-tinted scenes in Tangier establish Hunter’s bamf status as she efficiently dispatches a building’s worth of lackeys whilst rescuing the cargo - a kidnapped professor - her team was tasked with retrieving. Back in London, the orange tones give way to steely, shimmering blue, as if the Byzantium’s headquarters scenes were filmed in an aquarium rather than a hi-spec office block.
With minimal dialogue and sparse, quiet landscape shots (if there’s a grimy window to be filmed through, the director found it), the first half of the episode keeps us at a distance from Hunter, who’s as much a mystery to the viewer as her assailant is to her. Her next undercover job - posing as a bereaved mother and live-in tutor for the grandson of a wealthy crim (Patrick Malahide) - promises to reveal more of Hunter’s emotional life than her impassive, inscrutable performance has so far unveiled.
At this early stage then, Hunted is a pleasingly tense and good-looking addition to the autumn schedule, if a little cold. It’s something of a blessing the dialogue is sparse judging by the odd clunker of a line (“I knew you’d come back, even if it meant they tried to kill you again”), but the intrigue is there, as is the atmosphere and the action, which is plenty to be going on with for now.
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Nice to get some good female characters in shows like this, after five weeks of the misogy-fest of Strike Back over on Sky, where every women is either an object or target practice. That said, I am a bit disappointed in the aforementioned clunky dialogue, that just sounds forced coming out of the lead actress' mouth in a painfully posh accent. Not quite the team chemistry of Spooks (but who really expected it to top Spooks!?), but it's certainly promising. Hopefully, it'll keep me interested to the end...
I thought this opening was pretty poor. Melissa George merely appeared to pout. In the cafe where she was shot, how did the other guys not here the comotion when she killed the guy that had gone in there hunting her. How come one of the other guys takes so long to draw his gun on her. How come she looks so feeble yet can kick ass. I like the idea of a show like this with a strong female lead, but at least cast someone who looks like she can actually fight guys that big (it'd be like casting Mr. Muscle from the ads in a Bourne film, it wouldn't work). Here's hoping the next ep will be an improvement.
Prediction: We will discover that Hunter did NOT in fact lose her baby in the attempt on her life. After all, while my knowledge of gestating foetuses may not be perfect, I was under the impression that they resiide more toward the centre than the far left? And it was still first (or maybe early second) trimester given how she wasn't showing. That means that the baby would only have died due to the blood loss and trauma Hunter herself suffered, and with medical attention that is by no means a certainty.
Then there is the year plus she spent apparently recuperating. The first time we saw her practicing holding her breath and jogging was a year later, and it was at least a month more of training before she judged herself fit for duty. So where was she for the year? It wouldn't take that long for someone in real life to recover from that kind of injury, let alone a super spy in tv land. So it seems fairly obvious to me, that she carried the baby to term, and then hid him/her somewhere safe while she went to her scottish retreat to get back in to shape. After all, she knows better than most that her baby's best defence is anonymity.
I was so, so, *so* hoping Hunted would fill the Spooks shaped hole left on BBC1. It didn't. The plot has potential but the acting and script writing sucked. Melissa George has botoxed her face into oblivion and as such, has all of three expressions - Happy (with pout), vaguely puzzled (with pout) and constipated (with pout). I thought the whole idea of being an actress was to be able to convey emotion. And with lines like “I’m your best operative” and “What do you expect, I’m a spy?” I completely lost all hope. It’s like the producers stopped halfway through the casting and script-writing process and said “Meh. It’ll do. Throw it out to the masses”. Taken with a hefty pinch of salt and a large vodka, it’s tolerable.
I had similar thoughts although when she pulled back that fire to enter her secret room I thought we were going to see her baby then.
There was a new series of Strike Back? Damn! I missed it. I loved the previous series. I have no idea why, but I did.
I loved the first series with Richard Armitage. The second was ok. Kinda guilty pleasure laughably-macho fun. You're not missing out with the third series. It's disappointing and hilariously bad for the most part. Charles Dance is the saving grace. And they use him quite sparingly.
I found this series to be a huge let down. The lead character is totally unbelievable. At least cast someone that looks hard-ass enough to be able to tackle men twice her size. The while thing was just lacking in authenticity. What a let down. Switched off after the first episode and will not be watching the rest.