When it was first announced that Jon Bernthal would star in a remake of Paul Schrader's sexy 1980s crime drama American Gigolo, a collective cry went up from a very specific corner of the internet: those fans who have followed his career with keen interest ever since. then. His memorable performance in AMC's The Walking Dead followed by a redefining performance as Frank Castle in Netflix's Marvel series Daredevil and The Punisher.
The aforementioned shows served as a promising precursor to what Gigolo's Julian Kaye role could be in his hands; Bernthal has always had a knack for playing his female love interests with keen interest rather than ogling, attentive rather than creepy. Even in the three seasons of television in which he appeared as the Punisher, his bloody mission of revenge was interspersed with cute and quiet scenes, making Frank Castle more of a tragic antihero than a one-note antagonist. Fortunately, when this version of American Gigolo knows how to harness Bernthal's talent for screen intimacy, it makes the most of his charm and sex appeal. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between, as the show more often than not succumbs to prominent elements of mystery and yet-to-be-discovered secrets.
Creator: David Hollander
Stars: Jon Bernthal, Gretchen Mol, Lizzie Brocheré
Unlike Schrader's film, the small-screen American Gigolo fast-forwards to the aftermath of Julian Kaye's wrongful imprisonment for murder. The once-prominent Los Angeles gigolo has been serving time for a crime he didn't commit, sporting a horseshoe mustache and acquiring an impressive number of tattoos behind bars. This weathered version of Julian is juxtaposed against the shaken Julian who is first dragged off to jail, still covered in the blood of the woman he woke up next to, knife in hand, with no real knowledge of what he just did. happen.
It's a distinct change of pace to see Bernthal so overwrought after other series starts devoted to his delivery of intense, assertive monologues, such as on HBO's We Own This City from earlier this year. Here, he is sobbing, almost hysterical, unable to even put together a complete sentence, and that contrasts with the no-nonsense presence of Detective Jean Sunday, who doesn't buy his claims of ignorance or innocence. It's not until he elicits a deathbed confession from another criminal, 15 years later, that he fully exonerates Julian. He is now a free man, but with no idea where he really belongs, and his character's aimlessness is only reflected in the show's meandering first few episodes that are screened for critics, with an extreme reliance on flashbacks and non-linear storytelling that leaves you wondering how much footage was actually scripted versus improvised.
Bernthal's Julian is a far cry from the self-centered, materialistic man of past appearances; this current version is someone who has been humiliated by his circumstances and, once released, seeks a new purpose. While the show's sneak peeks would initially have you believe that he intends to go back to his original profession, find his way back to the sex work industry that brought him to Los Angeles in the first place, that's not the case at all. . Any scene we get with him at work, so to speak, comes in the form of the aforementioned flashbacks, or in an opening credits montage that is no doubt meant to evoke the feel of the original film and show Julian in his prime.
One can't help but wonder what that version of the show could have been like, with more instances where Bernthal was given screen time to demonstrate his abilities as a charmer or even a romantic figure. There are a few glimmers of promise each time the series takes us back in time to show us more of the dimensions between Julian and his secret love, Michelle (Gretchen Mol), but those are emphasized as mere whispers of the past, with any meeting Present. between them an impossibility due to the existing complications and the fact that their relationship was somewhat forbidden in the first place.