Barry (Season 1)

I am really bummed its taken me this long to talk about Barry. This show fascinated me but I never had an HBO subscription. Well thanks to Game of Thrones coming out this weekend, I got the chance to watch all of Barry and I'm almost a little disappointed that I blasted through this show as fast as I did because it is hilarious. I actually watched the first four episodes on a plane last year and I've been itching to watch the rest of it so I finished it in two days.

Barry is a dark comedy series directed and starring Bill Hader as the titular character, Barry, a former Marine turned Hitman. He works with an old family friend by the name of Fuches (played by Stephen Root) to kill "bad people". But from the beginning, Barry seems dissatisfied with his life.

But when he goes to Los Angeles to carry out another hit, he follows his target to an acting class led by the most stereotypical acting coach, Gene Cousineau (played by Henry Winkler). There Barry realizes that he finds a lot of joy in acting and wants to quit the world of professional killing and become an actor in Los Angeles. Obviously Fuches isn't happy about this but this also builds tension with the Chechan mob who hires him to kill people in Los Angeles and start a gang war. A lot of stuff happens in a very short amount of time including a LAPD detective by the name of Janice Moss (played by Paula Newsome) investigating the death of Barry's first hit, as well as Barry developing feelings for a prima donna in the class by the name of Sally (played by Sarah Goldberg).

Good lord there is so much to like about this show. First off, it's hilarious!

Let me disclaim that statement by saying that this is a show about a hitman and it's on HBO. There's going to be dark moments and when they're there, they're really there. But I think that only shows the range of someone like Bill Hader. There are a lot of moments in this show that are just down right funny and made me laugh really hard. It juxtaposes those dark moments with funny moments to make this perfect blend of funny, dark, serious, and tear jerking. And like most good shows, it's all about the characters.

Bill Hader is not the person you'd immediately think of when you think drama but he really flexes his acting chops in this show to the point where I really want him to delve into more serious roles more often after this. And yet, he's still super funny.

Barry is a good example of a lot of the characters in this show because he fits the stereotypical archetype that a lot of HBO characters follow. He's both a character that you get to know and really like and yet he does some terrible things in this show. I mean he's a hitman! And I think there's a pretty good reason he won an Emmy for this role, because in the 4 hours of television this show provides, you feel an incredible range of comedy, sadness, badassery, pity, joy, and a touch of evil from this character that makes him incredibly complicated.

The character of Sally is another good, maybe not as extreme, example. She's not a hitman, but she is kind of an asshole. She's self centered, she treats a lot of people around her like shit in pursuit of her own selfish goals. But at the same time you like her because of some of the shit she goes through. You like her because you do see some good in her and you want her to succeed in spite of those bad qualities I listed above I've dated women like her so maybe it's a little too real for me, but she also brings a wide range of character development and different emotions to the character that I loved every minute of her on screen.

And the two of them together, forget about it! These two work really well together because they are so different and yet it just works. I don't know if I ever thought I'd be watching a show about a hitman who wants to become an actor but for some reason it works really, really well.

The show is divided into two worlds. The acting class and Barry's mob connections and while both of them are funny for their own reasons, it's when they bleed over where it gets funny as hell and that's supported by the characters around the main characters.

Henry Winkler of course is really funny. He brings a heart and oblivious soul to the show that works really well. He heads the acting class full of the most oblivious but hilarious set of characters who you would see as the most stereotypical kids who leave their comfortable worlds to become actors when they have not business doing such things.

Stephen Root I think is an actor who I think it wildly underrated because he just shows up in a lot of things and while he's not very memorable a lot of the time, he's never bad. He plays the sort of devil on Barry's shoulder and I thought the relationship between those two were fantastic.

If there was a "weak link", it might be the Chechans. I say weak link because there's so many great parts about this story and all the characters work really well together, I just don't know if I liked these guys nearly as much as the other characters. Anthony Carrigan plays the completely bald one and he's the funnier of the two, but even him I go in and out on whether or not I was entertained by his oddball character, just like his accent.

I think one thing that I found interesting that with most plots it feels like stories are built on the idea of how many things can go wrong and end up right in the end. With Barry, without getting too much into it, it's almost about how many things can go right and then end up going wrong in the end. I think that was one of the underrated parts that worked for Barry was the cat and mouse game you'd expect when you have a criminal trying to evade being caught which Barry does for a lot of the show.

As I'm publishing this, the second season of Barry has already begun on HBO and I'm not totally sure how I want to approach it.

The episodes are only 30 minutes long but at the same time it feels like there is so much packed into one episode that it finds that perfect balance. So my dilemma is whether or not I watch these episodes as they come out week by week, or if I wait until all the episodes come out and watch it like a 4-5 hour long movie, one episode after another.

I'll give an update on that when I do my review of season 2, but the overall thing you should know about Barry is that it is hilarious, it's incredibly well acted, and it's an exciting mixture of stories that on paper you wouldn't think would work well together, but in fact are perfect for one another. If you have the chance to check out Barry, do yourself a favor. It won't take that long to get through the first season and you'll be like me wishing there was more right now.

But those are my thoughts on Barry Season 1. What did you think? Are you more of a binge watcher or a week by week episode watcher? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!