HBO’s Hung Not Ready for Prime Time
If you have to ask what this comedy is about after hearing the title, it isn't for you.
Hung, HBO’s new comedy debuting at 10 p.m. on June 28, follows a broke high school coach who becomes a male prostitute to leverage his God-given “gift.” The show isn’t as sordid as one might think. It’s also not as funny or innovative as the saucy title portends.
The comedy’s true gift is star Thomas Jane, who imbues the main character with the type of relatable flaws that set him apart from most small-screen protagonists. He plays Ray Drecker, a basketball coach suffering a mid-life crisis and economic meltdown all at once. Ray’s surly ex-wife (Anne Heche) married up and has little need to be nice to her former beau. Ray’s house just caught fire, forcing him to sleep in a tent in his backyard. His job seems secure, but it’s barely enough to pay off all his bills. Plus, he’s trying to get custody of his two kids but needs to rebuild his home before that can ever happen.
A quick visit to a motivational speaker (Seinfeld semi-regular Steve Hytner) inspires a possible solution, one that doesn’t require any market research. His “personal” endowment could be just the ticket to economic recovery. He gets an assist from a former one-night stand, a struggling poet named Tanya (the fine indie actress Jane Adams) who is trying to carve out a career on her own terms. Tanya offers to serve as Ray’s pimp, marketing his visitations as a happiness consultant. Ray doesn’t know if this new line of work is for him, but not for any ethical reasons. He’s just not a quick study when it comes to wooing strange women.
Hung strains to capture the zeitgeist, and setting the show in recession-rocked Detroit is a strong step in that direction. It’s also refreshing to see a story not centered in either New York or Los Angeles. No one is drinking appletinis here.
Ray’s voice-over kicks off Hung with a conservative streak — possibly the last one viewers are likely to see. Ray refuses to blame others for his plight. It’s how he was raised — you make do with whatever tools God gave you. But Ray isn’t very bright. He’s a mediocre coach, from what we can tell from his locker room speeches, and he’s clearly not Father of the Year material.
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Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
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11 Comments
1. hBG:Once again, it’s the “so-called” Christian who’s portrayed as an idiot with low morals. Why not re-write this with Ray as a Muslim?
Any one?
Bueler?
As you point out, too, our free-love pushing screenwriters and producers always ignore the inconvenient truth of the existence of STDs; but that’s just par for the course.
Jun 28, 2009 - 6:05 am 2. Chris Grieb:I like a lot of HBO series but I will pass on this one.
Jun 28, 2009 - 8:19 am 3. Delia:I’m so glad I finally cancelled HBO.
Jun 28, 2009 - 10:11 am 4. jvon:I object to the portrayal of men with large penises as mentally challenged. I am boycotting HBO in protest.
Jun 28, 2009 - 10:11 pm 5. Douglas:How long before we have “F***ing with the Stars” on the television? Real porn actors, male and female, paired off with Hollywood celebs.
Jun 29, 2009 - 3:32 am 6. joe buzz:Hah! good one Douglas.
Jun 29, 2009 - 7:27 am 7. Blarty Blarckleblart:Maybe you guys will get lucky and it will bomb, like The Goode Family did.
Jun 29, 2009 - 1:10 pm 8. gordo:I was offered the role, but I turned it down.
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:45 pm 9. Tristan:The first episode of any show usually is pretty rotten because they spend half the time setting up the premise and you can see it a mile away and it usually doesn’t make any sense to begin with – like the whole thing of him having no insurance, losing his house, his kids, etc in the space of a couple days. Then we have what seems to be a show about redemption – sort of like Run Fatboy Run tha I just saw on HBO – except instead of running for charity for his family, he’s American gigolo. The writers are really trying to thread a needle here by making him a lovable loser but doing some pretty despicable stuff – not sure if it really worked. I’ll watch the second one and see if it seems any better.
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:52 pm 10. Paul -Indiana:#9. Tristan, let us know how it turns out. I’ll spend my time on Dog the Bounty Hunter or Ice Road Truckers. At least they are about real people.
Jul 1, 2009 - 10:33 am 11. Francislewis:I really like the show but I think the plot is a bit slow…
http://francislewis.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/hung-up-on-the-details/
Aug 5, 2009 - 12:55 pm