Created by Mark L. Smith and directed by Peter Berg, American Primeval is a Western series for people who don't watch Westerns. It's made for the Netflix audience who prefer doing chores while keeping something on in the background. I think American Primeval will probably be played during workouts. The human screams, the sound of guns, and chaos will pump up the adrenaline while lifting dumbbells. Violence is the main subject of this show, and the director puts his entire focus on creating tense, brutal sequences (a character ignores orders, and a boy suffers from a severe leg injury so that Berg can excite your senses). He wants these moments to be the most memorable part of this show. Berg succeeds to a certain extent. The violence is effective and unpredictable during the first two or three episodes. Characters pull the trigger and attack their enemies so suddenly, so abruptly, that it takes a few seconds for you to register that the person on the screen has met their maker. A great example is the Meadows Massacre that occurs in Episode 1. It's a stylish as well as a barbarous sequence. It pulls you in with its sheer force. The choreography, though, is too neat, and too noticeable, and this realization creates a wall between the scene and the audience. You suddenly start admiring the execution instead of feeling the vicious force of the moment.
So many characters die in American Primeval. They fight for their land, ideas, and religion, but when they take their last breaths, they don't look like a hero but like tiny insects that have been squashed with a bat or a boot. The men, drunk on their egos, die in an unremarkable manner. A stab here, a bullet there, and poof, they disappear from the face of the earth. Berg doesn't prepare us for a character's end; he just eliminates them during a fight, a conflict, or a battle started by them. Isaac (Taylor Kitsch) and Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham) are the only exceptions because they are good humans. Nevertheless, American Primeval wants to convey the futility behind all the bloodshed. Man fights for land, women, and power and dies like a loser. Moreover, violence results in the loss of innocence (Sara, played by Betty Gilpin, understands that not all children have a pure soul), and it burns you in the fire of hatred (Dane DeHaan's Jacob Pratt, blinded by rage, kills the very person he loves).
All this, however, only sounds interesting as a moral statement. Smith and Berg convey that violence is bad, and you might respond with, "Tell me something I don't know." The characters, as well as their goals, can be defined with a single word or sentence: Sara wants to reunite with her husband, Jacob is searching for his wife (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), Brigham Young (Kim Coates) is fixated on acquiring Jim's land, and most men resort to killing people when their territory is threatened. They blame a marginalized group (say, Indians) for manipulating people. Simply put, most men are animals; to defeat them, one must turn themselves into animals. What can you achieve through this step? A landscape drenched in blood. Okay, but that doesn't mean you have to sit through six episodes in the company of thin characters. It doesn't take long for us to realize that American Primeval has nothing fresh or thought-provoking to offer. The blood and gore, after a while, become repetitive and dull. The monotonous beats fill you with tedium and sap the energy of American Primeval. The muted colors, which initially compliment the bleak, hostile environment, turn into an eyesore. American Primeval is one of those shows that could have easily been a film. It didn't need to run for six long hours, but the fact that it does only means that it's frustrating and tedious; it's such a bore.
Final Score- [2/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times