TV-Series :: Hunted

Anamon

Reviews: 8

Flawed thrillerRating: 0 likes, 1 dislikes

This British/American eight-parter tells a highly improbable, but nonetheless enjoyable and varied story of corporate conspiracies and espionage. While I think the story would have been better told in about two hours less, at least the moments of action and the feeling of suspense have been realised fairly well.

It is a pity then that the execution is very flawed. Among the lead cast, poor actors outnumbered the good ones about two-to-one. There are numerous agonising performances in every episode that feel more like second-rate theatre than high-profile drama. And most of the time, the writing can only be called hackneyed. Far too often, you can predict every word of a character's next sentence seconds before it is spoken, which is a shame for a story that should keep you on edge. The writers were definitely strapped for ideas, as much of the dialogue and far too many plot twists are far too obvious for anyone with a couple of thrillers under their belt. In almost every aspect (cinematography a notable exception), the show feels like several quality notches below standard BBC fare, which is especially surprising since this was a co-production with U.S. premium channel Cinemax. I would have expected that to translate to a higher production budget, not to an end result that often feels like a rush job.

In the end though, the plot remains okay, and the series was to a large part, at least superficially, nicely suspenseful. Hunted won't win any awards, but if you're craving for larger-than-life, high-speed conspiracy action, you could do worse.

Review posted on Tuesday, December 25th 2012 at 8:06 pm