The Hawk debuts on Netflix on July 16.
It can be uncomfortable seeing someone that you know can easily be funny as hell just totally misfire with a new comic character, but hey — it truly happens to the best of them. If it’s just one comedy sketch among many, you can just move on to the next one, but if it’s a movie, that’s more difficult because there’s more of a time investment. Still, after 90 minutes or so, the movie wraps up and you can still be hopeful for the next time out.
Ah, but if it’s a ten-episode TV show, and neither the central character nor the show around them is ever really coming together and rarely delivering laughs, it’s a much more frustrating experience to say the least. And sadly, such is the case with The Hawk, the new Netflix series starring Will Ferrell.
Mugatu, Buddy the Elf, Ron Burgundy, Ricky Bobby, Brennan Huff: The list of standout Will Ferrell characters is a long one, and I’m only pulling from his movies with that list and not even including the huge amount of awesome, memorable Saturday Night Live characters and sketches he gave us. After he left SNL and became a genuine movie star, beyond some guest star roles, Ferrell’s dabbled back in TV here and there with projects like The Spoils of Babylon. The Hawk, however, marks his biggest foray into playing a continuing character so far; he’s Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins, a past-his-prime golfer attempting a comeback.
Lonnie has all of the trappings of several classic Will Ferrell characters in terms of his man-child vibes, his unearned off-the-charts self-confidence, and his penchant for accidentally hurting himself. And yet all of these traits never come together in a satisfying manner; Lonnie always feels like a patchy idea of a comedy character rather than one who’s actually fully formed, but since he’s at the center of the series, he’s inescapable and increasingly annoying.
This awkward vibe is there from the start with an early scene where Lonnie plays a golf game to the tune of “The Thong Song,” singing and dancing along and then revealing he’s wearing a thong himself. You can see why the idea of Will Ferrell wearing a thong could be funny, and yet this is just not funny, and isn’t really motivated by anything occurring nor really ever returned to again as far as who Lonnie is. It’s one of many scenes where you can’t help but think of great Ferrell bits from the past being semi-echoed, like that SNL sketch where he wore the tiny red, white and blue shorts to show his post-9/11 patriotism, and how hysterical that was vs. this just not landing at all.
What’s notable is that Ferrell is surrounded on The Hawk by many other skilled and usually very funny people too, all to no avail. The series was co-created by Ferrell and two longtime collaborators, Harper Steele and Chris Henchy, with Steele in particular standing out for writing so many awesome SNL sketches, plenty of which starred Ferrell. Two of Ferrell’s lauded SNL co-stars, Molly Shannon and Chris Parnell, are among the cast, as is his Old School co-star, Luke Wilson. Andrew Guest, fresh off the triumph of serving as showrunner on the excellent Wonder Man, is among the writers. So much talent has assembled here for something so flat.
What went wrong? It’s hard to say. The Hawk was originally going to be a series co-created by Ferrell, Ramy Youssef, and Josh Rabinowitz, with Youssef intended to star alongside Ferrell. That sounds like a really interesting blending of sensibilities, and perhaps once Youssef and Rabinowitz departed the series — over the requisite “creative differences” — so did the show’s actual inspiration for existing, with this remaining as the hollow leftovers. Or maybe it’s just the dreaded Netflix curse that so often occurs when proven stars make some of their most career-mediocre to career-worst films and series for the streaming service (there are of course some genuinely good or outright terrific exceptions).
Whatever the reason, more often than not, the ten episodes of The Hawk are just meandering and dull. With this many legitimately funny people involved, there are some genuine big laughs to be found at times throughout the series, and a really clever line or an amusingly surreal imaginary sequence will pop in now and again, but they are way too few and far between.
The center of the series is Lonnie’s struggle to reconnect with his son, Lance (Jimmy Tatro), who’s followed in his footsteps and become a skilled pro golfer in his own right. But the push-pull between these characters — who, inevitably, find themselves facing off on the golf course — is neither amusing nor engaging enough to feel worth investing in. It doesn’t help that Tatro, who’s been a very witty scene stealer in projects like American Vandal and Theater Camp, is put in the straight man role for much of The Hawk’s running time. Aside from some Vegas-set bits later in the season, he’s mostly asked to play annoyed and exasperated in reaction to Ferrell rather than given the opportunity to try to create many laughs himself.
An absolute comedic pro like Molly Shannon does all she can to elicit laughs as Lonnie’s estranged wife, occasionally connecting through sheer force of will, yet she still struggles thanks to being given a character whose main trait initially is “curses a lot.” Various subplots burble in and out, including a potential love triangle for Lance, or Lonnie’s caddy (Fortune Feimster) reconnecting with her own dad, but little of it comes to life or feels worthwhile.
That being said, kudos to Patty Guggenheim, who made such a big impression as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s transcendent Madisynn. King has a relatively small amount of screen time compared to others in the cast, playing the love interest to Parnell’s mega-jerk character, but still manages to make the most of it, bringing some decent wry humor into a show that desperately could use more of it.
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