Opinion: The killer performances of ‘Barry’
4 min read . Updated: 10 May 2019, 10:21 AM IST- Bill Hader and Henry Winkler shine in this dark HBO comedy
- Hader stars the titular hitman who joins an acting class
Could you kill a stranger? Could I? If we absolutely needed/wanted, I wager an alarming percentage would (claim to) be able to terminate someone we don’t know. It is awareness that makes a person human to us, and there may be nothing more humanizing—in this day and age—than the sight of someone watching television. Even the idea of killing a terrorist is complicated if you find them drinking beer and watching reruns of a show you like. The empathy is immediate and overwhelming, which is why we may hesitate.
A pro would not. Barry, a former Marine, is an ace assassin. Lucrative as the mercenary game is, though, he feels hollow. One night, when he tails a victim-to-be into an acting class, he is—startlingly, immediately, surely—bitten by the infamous bug. He wants to pretend. He wants to deny his past in order to be the person the script says he is.
This premise is reminiscent of Shane Black’s brilliant 2005 noir comedy,Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where a crooked Robert Downey Jr stumbles into an audition, and is whisked away to Hollywood after his heartfelt confession is hailed as great acting. Barry—streaming in India on Hotstar Premium—is more about on-stage acting and stays in the theatre (even if people in LA only act out monologues from the movies).
It isn’t only glibness and guns. Created by Alec Berg (executive producer on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Silicon Valley) and Bill Hader (the Saturday Night Live comedian I will forever love as the shockingly trendy discotheque recommender, Stefon), Barry tears into the idea of performance art. Playing Barry, Hader stretches himself both as a compelling actor and—as the show gets more ambitious—proves a seriously good director. There is hilarity, but as Barry gets darker and more emotionally loaded, it nails the tragicomic tone.
The performances are killer. Hader is in cracking form as the tormented and hesitant assassin, lauded by fellow actors as a “generous" performer because of his unwillingness to showboat. Three actors around him, though, really make Barry shine: the great Stephen Root as his old friend Fuches, holding up the business end of assassination, Anthony Carrigan as the inconveniently friendly Chechnyan terrorist NoHo Hank, and—most crucially—Henry Winkler as the bloviating acting teacher, Gene Cousineau.
Winkler was always a scene-stealer. He began as comic relief in the 1970s sitcom Happy Days, but his jukebox-thumping character, The Fonz, became so iconically cool that he soon owned the show. He sparkled as a hideously inept lawyer on Arrested Development despite a crammed ensemble. In Barry, the actor is finally given elbow room, with scenes of his own. His Cousineau is absurdly pompous, yet knowledgeable enough to actually inspire his students. He takes the stage with majesty, drinking up applause like he has earned every drop. This may be because Winkler truly has.
The first season of season 2 is a breeze, even though it ended on a Dexter-esque note, making me wonder if Barry had more to offer. The craft was immaculate—the important gunshots are evocatively, poetically, searingly depicted as flashes of light instead of loud bangs—but was there more to say? The second season is astounding, already emerging sharper, sadder and smarter. There’s an impassioned urgency to the narrative, and, given meatier roles, the actors are putting forward their most impressive feet. It’s enough to make you feel like a casting agent.
The fifth episode of season 2 is a masterpiece. It’s windpipe-burstingly original, purely unexpected and sensational enough to circumvent genre while staying true to character. I watched it twice, gratefully.
As when stripping and reassembling a revolver, it’s about balance. Barry strikes a surreal compromise between farce and drama, something that doesn’t entirely add up but feels like it should. In this world, for instance, it feels okay for this broad-shouldered young man to walk in and out of anywhere with a gun tucked casually into his Lululemon tracksuit. Policemen in this crazy town use a press conference to liken a gang-related murder case to Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. (That’s not all; a journalist asks the cop to spell “Yojimbo" aloud, and when asked if Yojimbo was the only film Kurosawa made, the cop is shocked. “Oh God, No! He was highly prolific.")
At one point, Barry is told comedy is easy. “It’s not a drama, it’s a comedy, so all you have to do is talk really loud and fast. Anyone can do it."
That’s not entirely accurate, and though Barry does occasionally speak really loud and fast, it never seems simple. Everything is a mess, including the audience getting off on this weird show. The best we can hope for is that when an assassin sneaks up on one of us, he will be assuaged enough by the sight of our watching this empathetic show about killing to perhaps drop the plan. At the very least, he’ll take a tight five, and give us till the end credits.
Stream of Stories is a column on what to watch online. Raja Sen is a film critic and the author of The Best Baker In The World (2017), a children’s adaptation of The Godfather.
He tweets at @rajasen