HUNTERS (Season 2) -- Two Is Better Than One

Review by Dan Skip Allen

Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Hunters is a show on Amazon Prime that has had one season already and is about to start its second season. As its name suggests, the show is about a group of Nazi hunters in the '60s and '70s, led by Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino). He gathers a ragtag group of men and women together, and they search for and kill ex-Naxi men and women who left when Germany fell to the Allied soldiers in WWII.

The group has all moved on from season one, and they all have their own things that they are doing. Some are still hunting Nazis, and others are doing things they didn't expect. When a woman, Chava (Jennifer Jason Leigh), tries to get them all back together again to hunt down the biggest Nazi fish of them all, it's not an easy task. One of their own has been kidnapped, brainwashed, and joined the other side. Plus, they still have to deal with a threat from season one.

David Weil decided to do something unusual with the structure of the show's second season. He had a flashback sequence that went back during the entire length of the series featuring Al Pacino's character. It depicts him in the early days of forming the group and finding out that Nazis fled Germany after the war. It is a nice juxtaposition to the main storyline of the group getting back together to hunt down the great white whale.

Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Anybody who knows me will say I love '70s films or films set in that era. Hunters is set in that era, and I love seeing the characters with big hair, big collars, or bell-bottom pants. The clothes, cars, and props are all terrific to look at in the series. They all add to the overall production design that the series is set in. That's part of why I really like this show. We need more shows set in this era or time.

The series deals with difficult subject matter: how Jewish people deal with the fact that one particular Nazi is still alive. They each have their own motivations for how they want to hunt down and punish this man, who is right and wrong, and who gets caught in the crossfire. The characters are a team, but they don't always get along, especially in this regard. 

The writers and showrunner ask the viewers of season 2 of Hunters to take a giant leap of faith regarding the said story. It's not a conventional story structure, but it worked for me. Al Pacino gets to do some great work once again as the leader of this group of unlikely people who have to band together for the greater good. The rest of the cast is very good, with Logan Lerman being a standout for me. The production value is also excellent and creates a great setting for this storyline.

​Hunters streams on Prime Video beginning January 13.

Rating: 3.5/5