Binge-r #231: Shadowplay + The Expanse
City Limits: Taylor Kitsch (Max McLaughlin) in Shadowplay
SHADOWPLAY
Streaming Service: SBS on Demand
Availability: All eight episodes now streaming
This international co-production – German history, Swedish creator, American stars – set in the rubble of 1946 Berlin is a reasonably engaging drama where the historic milieu contains more compelling power than any fictional plotline set upon it. When a New York police detective arrive in post-World War II Germany, Max McLaughlin (Taylor Kitsch) discovers a country of ruins – physically and emotionally. He soon encounters some hotel corridor kink, followed by street kids whose brazen acts suggests a form of nihilistic psychosis. It is a nightmarish world, and Max’s secondment to the fledgling civilian police force appears to be a fool’s errand. Predominantly women like precinct boss Elsie Garten (Nina Hoss), these survivors are armed with bed legs as truncheons and can’t even afford uniforms.
The real power lay with the occupying forces: the Soviets, United States, British, and French. Each side was preparing for the Cold War, with secrets and spooks the only viable economy in a rubble-filled landscape where street maps are no longer relevant. Max is a dedicated cop, but as moulded by creator Mans Marlind, whose previous series was the Arctic north crime mystery Midnight Sun [full review here], he is something of a straight arrow and a touch too modern for the career that shaped him (despite Kitsch’s strong period Irish-American accent). Even as the spies size him up, Max is also covertly seeking his missing brother, Moritz (Logan Marshall-Green), a U.S. Army deserter who has seen too much and now communicates in children’s story quotes, like a serial killer from a bad 1990s thriller.
While this particular moment in time is a recurring element for storytellers, whether it’s Roberto Rossellini with 1948’s Germany, Year Zero or Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German in 2006, this limited series is most interesting as a modern examination of the German populace. The level of trauma is insurmountable, and while the always excellent Hoss plays a budding optimist, there’s a parallel plot about a covert crime group who turn a young woman already raped by occupying soldiers, Karin (Mala Emde), into a weapon of vengeance. There’s a surfeit of characters, including the American vice-consul and his angry, licentious wife (Michael C. Hall and Tuppence Middleton), to appraise. There are enough striking moments to probably keep you watching, and outweigh the missteps.
Space Invaders: Steven Strait (James Holden) in The Expanse
THE EXPANSE S5 (Amazon Prime Video, all 10 episodes now streaming): Science-fiction might be the genre with the poorest track record on the streaming services – it’s hard to find a series with ideas and endurance. The Expanse is the exception to that rule, which is why I’m returning to it after initially reviewing it in the very first issue of BINGE-R [full review here – hello December 2016!] Recently I started watching it again, zipping through the fourth and fifth seasons after several years away (a sixth and final season has been commissioned). These recent batches boast the enhanced budgets shelled out by Amazon, who took over production from the Syfy Channel, but the same themes have always resonated in the year 2350 setting: humanity’s vulnerability in the face of inequality, our rush to division, and the cost of trying to make a genuine difference. The narrative has moved the crew of the spaceship Rocinante to the centre of storylines, which is the norm for any long-running drama, but the level of detail – in terms of humanity, not technology – remains. The Expanse is the first show I recommend to sci-fi devotees new to streaming, and the last few weeks of watching have only reinforced that.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: A step up from her directorial debut Wine Country, Amy Poehler’s Moxie (2021, 111 minutes) is a pleasing Gen X to Gen Z story of female affirmation as a group of teenage students right the wrongs in their high school; Jack Reacher (2012, 131 minutes) is an old school action thriller with Tom Cruise as the righteous loner whose investigation of a sniper uncovers a criminal conspiracy (important note: Werner Herzog co-stars).
New on Stan: Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007, 121 minutes) is the near-perfect British comedy about American action films, complete with the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost partnership; Scarface (1983, 170 minutes) remains a savage indictment and icy depiction of American ambition, with Al Pacino as the Cuban refugee who bloodily takes over the Miami cocaine trade and Michelle Pfeiffer’s trophy wife.
New on SBS on Demand: There’s never been a definitive adaptation of an Anton Chekhov play, and this American version of The Seagull (2018, 95 minutes) directed by theatre director Michael Mayer is only middling, but it does boast an exceptional cast doing fine individual work: Annette Bening, Elisabeth Moss, Saoirse Ronan, and Corey Stoll.
>> Missed last week’s BINGE-R? Click here to read about Stan’s perceptive friendship comedy Doll & Em and Netflix’s dystopian drama Tribes of Europa.
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>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 287 series reviewed here, 161 movies reviewed here, and 39 lists compiled here.
