The Impact Review - Banshee (DVD)

A unnamed con walks out of prison after serving fifteen years inside.  Before he went in he was a tough-as-nails petty thief working with an Ukranian crime-syndicate... and his time within the walls has made him tougher still. Now he only has two aims in mind: to avoid the gangland boss he betrayed and to find the love of his life Anastasia (Ivana Miličević) with whom he originally went on the run. He sacrificed his freedom to keep hers and now he wants to be reunited with her and the diamonds from their last job.  Using the tracking skills of his old friend  and transvestite computer hacker Job (Hoon Lee) he tracks her down to the Pennsylvanian town of Banshee where, to his surprise, she's not only assumed the new indentiy of Carrie Hopewell but is also married with two children. The other wrinkle in our anti-hero's plan takes place during a violent confrontattion in a bar on the borders of the town, a separate robbery that leaves the only other customer in the bar dead. The dead man was the town's new sheriff, Lucas Hood, yet to introduce himself to anyone and hired sight unseen to clear up some of the town's corruption. In a desperate moment that will shape everything that comes next, our pragmatic anti-hero assumes the indentity and credentialsof the fallen officer - now he has a badge, deputies has an legitimate illegitimate reason to stick around - at least until he gets what he wants.  Of course, with his old boss  'Mr Rabbit' ( Ben Cross) as desperate to find him as Anastasia/Carrie is to be rid of him, things are about to get complicated and compromised very quickly...

Australian actor Antony Starr may not have been a name on everyone's lips prior to Banshee  - and probably best known to international audiences for guest-roles on the likes of Xena and Hercules - but here he makes a solid and memorable impact with this career-making role and a cult show that has already received an early second-season renewal for a 2014 run. The role of 'Lucas Hood' affords opportunities on many levels aand ultimately Starr/Hood is the lynchpin for making the show what it is. Starr gives us a character we can root for, but feel uncomfortable about in the process. He's his own worst enemy, but the least bad member of a very, very bad bunch. You want him to win even when he really shouldn't.

There's absolutely no doubt that this is a show aimed at 'guys'. While there's a certain lip-service paid to female viewers, with Starr often appearing shirtless and his 'Hood' somewhat a victim of his own weathered romanticism,  the sheer amount of female flesh on show - including frequent and explicit full-frontal nudity - clearly skews the demographic. Nary an episode goes by without one of Banshee's female residents falling for(or laying down for, or testing the bed-springs with) Hood and the resulting sex is the hot, sweaty, fast and furious kind of which the US cable shows specialise. And yet  while there's a visual sexism to proceedings,  Ivana Miličević  absolutely holds her own - proving to be a dynamic screen presence, an incredibly charsimatic actress who is far from the traditional mere eye-candy roles and clearly capable of the significant emotional and highly physical demands of the part.  

And, yes, if the sex is immediately notable, then so is the physicality and violence. We know that US cable-shows have long had less concerns over censorship and avoid network naval-gazing, but even by the standards of The Sopranos, Dexter, True Blood and The Walking Dead, this is quite brutal stuff  - no graceful martial-arts on show here; this is often hand-to-hand combat with the addition of any nearby weapon of choice. Flesh bruises, blood flows and bones break and it's hard to think of any other show that's quite as relentlessly aggressive. (There's even an argument to be made that some of the sheer power of the magnificently choreographed fight scenes is fractionally dimished by their sheer number - the first half of the show's first season run barely let's you catch your breath without someone getting beaten down in a way that  - in the real world - would leave them dead or crippled...)

That action is shared out. Hood knocks seven bells out of anyone who ignores his you-get-one-warning rule, but he's also very much on the receving end of the fights -  no superhero he. One key sequence shows how prison changed him and his encounter with the jail's abusive overlord and rapist 'The Albino' is astonishing graphic television (perhaps the most cynically complex since the classic 'OZ'). Special kudos should go to British actor Joseph Gatt in that guest-role as The Albino, not an adversary you'll forget in a hurry. But Anastasia/Carrie also gets to prove her mettle. One episode has her fighting an opponent to the death that lasts a good third of the episode and is so up-close and personal and well-choreographed that the viewer feels as bruised and battered as the actors must have been by the end of the day's shooting. Miličević  - already a veteran of Casino Royale, Hawaii-Five-0 and Chuck - could well be on the road to big-screen action-star stardom when the show finally ends. 

The other interesting ingredient is the religious backdrop. A major thread of the season is the iron-grip crime-lord  Kai Proctor (Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen - The World is Not Enough) has over elements within the town of Bansshee. Banished from his Amish community for his less-than-altruistic ways, he has risen through pragmatic and nefarious means to become a major force in the area, his fingers in many pies and his will rarely questioned. The 'original' Hood was coming to town to help finally end Proctor's intimidatingreign, but what will 'our' Hood do - will proctor be enemy or friend?

Banshee requires a suspension of  testosterone-fuelled disbelief that once overcome allows the viewer to simply sit back and marvel at the sheet machismo. It will not be to everyone's tastes and there's something within to offend everyone if you're so inclined. But the series - created by Jonathan Tropper and David Shickler and executively-produced by True Blood's Alan Ball has to be admired for its sheer bravado and a momentum that never lets up. Before you know it, you'll be invested in the outcome and aching for the next episode.

If it's true that  'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger...' then Banshee may yet end up being the juggernaut of television action thrillers...

Banshee: Series One screams onto Blu-ray and DVD from 2nd September, courtesy of HBO Entertainment. Price £34.99 (blu-ray) and £29.99 (DVD).   A confirmed second series is due early in 2014.