Amazon’s lush ‘Last Tycoon’ looks like a million bucks
In contemporary Hollywood, there is no actor better suited to play a 1930s-era leading man than 2000 Carnegie Mellon University grad Matt Bomer (“White Collar”). He just has the right look and bearing for such a role, which is one of the things that makes Amazon’s new streaming series, “The Last Tycoon,” eminently watchable.
Pair Mr. Bomer with Kelsey Grammer (in “Boss” mode), who plays Hollywood studio executive Pat Brady, and add period-perfect production design and “The Last Tycoon” turns into a stylistic delight.
As a drama, “The Last Tycoon” is slightly less successful. Occasionally plodding and without a lot to say in the early going that isn’t spelled out in capital letters — NAZIS = BAD! — early episodes offer good, not great drama.
It’s a fine soap opera, and for viewers missing the Hollywood studio era with the end of FX’s “Feud,” “The Last Tycoon” is sort of “Feud Lite,” supplying plenty of era-appropriate ambiance, right down to characters referring to movies as “pictures” (although none do it with the snap Susan Sarandon brought to the word in “Feud”).
Based loosely on — or, perhaps, more accurate to say “inspired by” — the unfinished F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same title, the nine-episode first season of “The Last Tycoon,” debuting Friday, focuses on Mr. Bomer’s Monroe Stahr, a widower and wunderkind producer at Pat Brady’s studio. It’s been two years since Stahr’s wife, Minna, died in a fire, and he’s going into production on a film that tells her life story.
But then the Nazis come in and ruin everything (like they do). The Germans object to the film because the whole world knows Monroe is Jewish, and they won’t allow the film to play in Germany — the second largest foreign market — because of that, even though the movie doesn’t cover Minna’s marriage to Monroe.
Adapted for television by Billy
Ray (“Captain Phillips”) and Christopher Keyser (“Party of Five”), “The Last Tycoon” features many of the same characters found in the novel, but the plot seems to have been largely reconfigured for TV.
Additional plot pieces in the pilot include a Depression-era shantytown parked across the street from the studio, Monroe’s discovery of a potential new soulmate (Dominique McElligott, “House of Cards”) and the rising influence of Pat’s daughter, Celia ( Lily Collins, “Abduction”), a wannabe producer who comes up with a movie plot that attempts to mitigate Germany’s interference in the studio.
Episode two introduces rival studio mogul Louis B. Mayer (Saul Rubinek) of MGM fame and explores an indiscretion that tarnishes Monroe’s nice guy, golden boy image.
“The Last Tycoon” is an entertaining, lush serial but doesn’t necessarily rise to the breakout level that will allow it to completely cut through the din of Peak TV noise.
Channel surfing
OWN renewed “Queen Sugar” for a third season. … Scripts for the final season of “Game of Thrones” are written, but HBO is unsure whether that final season will air in 2018 or 2019. … A third season of “True Detective” starring Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”) is in the works at HBO. … A script for a “Deadwood” movie is written but has no green light for production. … Jon Stewart will star in an HBO stand-up comedy special.
Tuned In online
Today’s TV Q&A column responds to questions about Steve Harvey, Investigation Discovery shows and a Pittsburgh-set reality show. This week’s Tuned In Journal includes posts on “Shark Week.” Read online-only TV content at http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/artsentertainmentTuned In podcast has the weekoff.