UnBinged reviews three series featuring swindlers, moles, and sinister striplings, as people from different eras, backgrounds, and regions find reasons to play pretend.
The Sympathizer (HBO/Max)Â Â
A spy known simply as the Captain attempts to play both sides of the Vietnam War, but in Max’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Sympathizer, his loyalties are as blurred as the politics that surround the conflict itself.
Created by acclaimed director Park Chan-wook and writer Don McKellar, the story of a Communist turncoat is transformed into a compelling series about self-identity, with a commentary on the atrocities of war. A complex narrative told through the POV of an unnamed half-Vietnamese, half-Caucasian Trotskyite operative, the series recounts his time as a high-ranking mole in the South Vietnamese army, his escape after the fall of Saigon, his time in Hollywood working for the film industry, and, finally, his capture and imprisonment.
Framed as a confession written from solitary confinement, Hoa Xuande’s Captain is the focus of this satirical period piece, which gets progressively darker as it continues, until ultimately embracing the full brutality of war. The success of the adaptation hinges on Xuande’s brilliant performance.Â
Similar to other villain protagonists, like Breaking Bad’s Walter White or Death Note’s Light Yagami, the narrator is an antihero who strongly believes he is the white knight of his story, despite the nefariousness of his acts. As our guide through absurd and deeply upsetting circumstances, Xuande perfectly delivers the narrator’s sardonic point of view, to create a morose anti-war send-up with moments that are difficult to forget.Â
Aiding him along the way is a supporting cast of heavy hitters, including a shapeshifting Robert Downey Jr. channeling his best Peter Sellers to play different roles, including the character of…
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