A creative concept, fresh and edgy dialogue, inspired acting, makes Netflix’s ‘Mindhunter’ – totally binge-worthy.
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Mindhunter. Crime. IMDb pro-rating 8.7 with a 96% score from Rotten Tomatoes.
I had seen Jonathan Groff on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, pitching his new show Mindhunter, on Netflix. I made a note ‘sounds interesting’. A sub-zero snowstorm gave me the opportunity to check it out. I am officially changing ‘sounds interesting’ to ‘Outstanding’!
Based on the book Mindhunter , by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the series is created by Joe Penhall, who also produces, along with Charlize Theron and David Fincher. It is based inside the FBI Elite Serial Crime Unit, circa 1977.
Sound like another whodunnit detective story? It isn’t. It’s a WHY he dunnit?. The series digs into the psychology of the perpetrator. Are murderer’s and criminal’s born, or are they made that way by the trauma they have suffered (mostly as infants, children and young adults)?
The dialogue crackles and pops, and when it needs to be expository, it finds a way to make it riveting and engaging. In one case subtitles were displayed over loud music while the couple danced. What they were saying could be heard, but was technically important to the storyline, so the subtitles reinforced the message.
The women’s roles are up-to-date contemporary. Anna Torv and Hannah Gross are bright, confident, authentic and feisty!
All the dialogue is top of the line engaging. One tid-bit I found intriguing, is when Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), who is instrumental in introducing more psychological methods to the art of hostage negotiation, says “The FBI was created to hunt down, and bring to justice, greedy guys who don’t give a hoot about the rules, and whose only goal is to make money for themselves”. How time-sensitive!
Holden Ford and his partner Bill Tench (Holt McCallany, who shines) realize that catching a criminal often requires the authorities to get inside the villain’s mind to figure out how he thinks. They attempt to understand and catch serial killers by studying their damaged psyches. Along the way, the agents pioneer the development of modern serial-killer profiling.
There are moments when the setting, lighting, acting and dialogue are so real, you actually feel it is.
First-Class and Brava! Mindhunter has been renewed for a second season. Go Netflix!
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