If Hitler Had Been Put On Trial

February 19, 2023

MAJOR spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t seen Hunters and plans to watch it anytime soon. Walk away now and join us again next week.

I said walk away, dammit.

When you read reviews of the Amazon series Hunters, which features none other than the Almighty Al Pacino as the lead character who drives the show relentlessly like an engine about to overheat, it’s clear to see they are mixed. Although generally positive, the consensus seems to be that the overly ambitious series about a ragtag group of modern-day Nazi hunters was too often over the top and sometimes preposterous in its storyline and therefore missed its intended mark.

In short, nice try, but nice tries don’t get the gold.

Welllll…yes and no. I watched both seasons of Hunters from beginning to end. As a matter of fact, once the second and final season came out recently, I went back and re-watched the entire first season just to refresh my memory and then binged my way straight through Season 2.

Because it’s not often - as in almost never - that you can find a show like Hunters that is willing to take such a huge risk and a gamble to tell such a gut-wrenching story using one of the most painful chapters in world history as a source material. Because risk is something not normally factored into the equation as a positive ingredient when the entertainment decision-makers decide what shows we will or won’t eventually see. Because risk too often means not enough viewers and therefore not enough financial returns.

And although the best and most interesting shows these days are hands-down all on TV (or whatever you watch your shows on at home) and not at the movie theaters, that too often still doesn’t translate into willingness to take any serious risks to tell great stories. It’s just not worth it from a business perspective, and entertainment is the biggest of Big Business.

And yet risk, taken for the right reasons, is more worthy of reward than safe travels.

Which is why I’m still trying to figure out the how-did-this-happen greenlighting of a story based on an alternative history anchored in the bloodied and torn flesh of the Holocaust and Hitler’s Germany where it turns out Hitler actually faked his death with the help of his loyal followers and other 3rd Reich Nazi survivors and was living somewhere in South America plotting the rise of an actual 4th Reich (!!!) with his lover Eva Braun (who also survived in this alternate history) until he was finally tracked down by those Nazi hunters I mentioned earlier who each dedicated their lives to tracking down and killing all those surviving Nazis of the infamous 3rd Reich but especially Hitler.

Phew…

But do you see what I’m getting at here? These kinds of stories simply don’t make it to the screen. Almost never. So unlike some, I’m willing to give some leeway for missteps and false starts when a show attempts the Herculean task of weaving together a story as challenging as this. Because to screw around with this explosive of a storyline is to risk (there’s that word again) the sorts of consequences that can…well… put an end to things like careers, etc. And that’s for starters.

And yet Al Pacino signed on. Al fucking Pacino. And he signed on as the lead character! Which told me that if someone like Al Pacino was willing to believe in this project - and to give it some degree of cover by the sheer weight of his reputation and industry-wide gravitas - then there was undoubtedly something there to believe in. Which all comes into focus during the final episode of the series after Hitler has been captured by the Nazi hunters (actually one in particular) and brought to face trial for his crimes against humanity. His defense lawyer is a Jew who is reviled by opposing counsel as a sellout, but who makes the compelling argument that even Hitler is deserving of a fair trial and that, in fact, Hitler more than anyone else must be tried in a proper fashion that cannot be challenged as a kangaroo court created solely for the purpose of destroying Hitler. His conviction must be airtight, unchallengeable. And he was willing to be the bad guy as an excellent lawyer who would force the prosecution to bring their ‘A’ game if they were going to make this thing stick.

Which is kinda like what’s going on now with Trump, but I’ll save that for later.

Anyway, the trial itself is one of the most powerful episodes of television I have seen in quite some time, and without a doubt among the most powerful when it comes to alternative fiction or science fiction/fantasy that has been translated to the screen. I won’t recount the entire drama here, but to me, the end result - after Hitler has been convicted - results in a scene that spun me all the way around.

Imagine Hitler, alone in a jail cell, having his food shoved to him through the slot by a faceless guard. Imagine Hitler, the once-upon-a-time uber tyrant, the Godzilla of all monsters, screaming out:

“Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am!”

But no one answers.