American Gigolo gets a smart and slick update
AMERICAN Gigolo was the film that established Richard Gere as a leading man, shocked cinema audiences with its male nudity, established the Armani brand in Hollywood and turned Blondie’s Call Me into a worldwide hit.
Paul Schrader’s 1980 neonoir crime drama was an evocative, provocative tale about a male escort who becomes romantically involved with a politician’s wife and the prime suspect in a murder case.
Now, more than four decades on and eight years after it was pitched as an idea, ‘‘Julian Kaye’’ is back – in the form of The Walking Dead’s Jon
Bernthal – in a smart, slick contemporary 10-part update.
Faced with life imprisonment – and with circumstantial evidence very much not in his favour – the man born John Henderson (Bernthal) had reluctantly taken hard-nosed advice from Detective Sunday (a virtually unrecognisable and impressively intense Rosie O’Donnell) and confessed to the murder of longtime ‘‘client’’ Janet Holmes.
Fifteen years on and he’s become a model prisoner – a key member of the kitchen staff and respected player on the basketball court. So a call for
Prisoner BHG4428 to visit the warden’s office is certainly a bolt from the blue. To his even greater surprise, it’s Detective Sunday with the shocking news that someone else has made a deathbed confession to killing Janet Holmes.
Although now a free man, Henderson has the unenviable task of picking up the pieces from a decade-and-a-half ago. That includes attempting to reconnect with the former love of his life – Michelle Stratton (Gretchen Mol), who just happens to be the wife of a powerful, ruthless tech billionaire (Leland Orser) – facing the mother who sold him into the life he never asked for and mulling whether to return to his former employers, especially now that ‘‘the business’’ has a whole new figurehead in the form of the ruthless Isabelle (Lizzie
Brochere´ ).
The Guardian and Ray Donovan showrunner David Hollander looks like he has another hit show on his hands. Led by a charismatic – and buff – Bernthal, Gigolo is an addictive drama filled with memorable characters (as well as O’Donnell’s caustic cop, you also get comedian Wayne Brady as a fellow male escort and Orser’s twitchy tech boss), visually arresting imagery and plenty of narrative twists to keep you on your toes.
The flashbacks fleshing out Henderson’s transformation into Julian Kaye are intriguing and well-handled, while THAT Blondie song (and Heart of Glass) is cleverly inserted into the opening episode.
With a sun-soaked setting that belies this sometimes dark tale, American Gigolo is shaping up nicely as appointment viewing throughout this spring.
American Gigolo begins streaming on Neon tomorrow. Episodes will also debut on Sky TV’s SoHo channel at 8.30pm on Wednesday nights from September 14.