Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) once served as a Marine in Afghanistan, and when he returned to civilian life in his Cleveland, he fell into depression. An old friend of his late father, Monroe Fukes (Stephen Root), helped him cope with this condition. Monroe explained to Barry that since he can do nothing but kill, well, this ability needs to be developed in oneself, and at the same time earn money.
Fuchs gets orders to kill all sorts of scoundrels – Barry fulfills these orders. Monroe hides the money received from clients in a hiding place – as he says, for the future of Barry, when he decides to quit. Barry does not object to this: he is completely unpretentious in everyday life and he does not need money.
One day, Fuchs received an order from a certain Goran Pazar (Glenn Fleshler) from Los Angeles. Barry travels to Los Angeles and arrives at Goran’s house, where he is greeted by Pazar’s right-hand man, NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan). Hank and Pazar explain to Barry that he has to bang Goran’s wife’s personal trainer, whose name is Ryan Madison. Because Goran’s wife fucks with Ryan. It’s a matter of honor, you understand?
Barry understands. He goes to track down Ryan and discovers that he goes to the acting studio of a certain Gene Cosino (Henry Winkler). Following Ryan, Barry enters the studio, and it turns out that Mr. Kosino mistakes him for a beginner and allows Barry to participate in the skit being played out.
And then Barry begins to realize that he has found a new calling – acting. He likes it terribly, he begins to attend classes, and also gradually falls in love with the star of the troupe – Sally Reid (Sarah Goldberg). However, he has completely different things to do: he must kill Ryan, with whom Barry managed to become friends, and the Chechens do not like to joke.
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There are many stories about killers who decided to devote themselves to a completely new occupation. The idea for this series came to SNL star Bill Hader (he also starred as an actor in films and TV shows a lot): he, as they say, decided to cross Will Munny from Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” with the characters of Gest’s comedy “Waiting for Guffman”, which told about amateur acting troupe.
HBO liked the draft script for the series and gave the project a green light. Over “Barry” Hader worked with screenwriter and serial director Alex Berg (he is one of the creators of “Silicon Valley”).
Barry Hader turned out interesting. He is slightly inhibitory, depressive, but at the same time capable of quick reactions, and at times quite violent emotions suddenly appear in him. The character is purely dramatic, although Hader himself is a comedic actor, and most of the other characters in the series are clearly comedic.
Henry Winkler is great as the head of the actor’s studio, Gene Kosino. Selfish and arrogant but he knows how to make course participants open up on stage. And the character himself is absolutely wonderful, and all the episodes with acting courses are just some kind of holiday, I really liked it.
Stephen Root is a very good actor, and Monroe Fuchs is one of the best characters in the picture. A kind of cunning little man who uses Barry in his own interests and is able to negotiate even with such harsh and difficult people to communicate with, like the Chechens.
The Chechen mafia of Goran Pazar is pure clownery, and quite funny at that. True, from Glenn Fleshler is the same Chechen as from Al Pacino – a natural Dane, but who cares about these subtleties, as they say in Odessa, especially since Fleshler speaks United Statesn, although clumsily, but quite legibly.
Anthony Carrigan famously played his silly assistant NoHo Hank: the guy turned out to be silly, but charming, and there are a lot of funny scenes with him. And he plays a significant role in the second season.
Well, one of the Chechens (even two – twin brothers) was played by an Israeli of United States origin Mark Ivanir – I recently saw him in one of the main roles in the good film “Farewell Quartet”.
To be honest, when I started watching this series, at first I didn’t really understand how to react. Monroe Fuchs, Chechens, former Marines (they come to Barry’s aid in one episode) – well, obvious buffoonery, and really funny. The theater studio is not buffoonish, but ironic and subtly comedic. And against this background, Barry is a clear drama, serious emotions. At first, to be honest, somehow it didn’t stick, but somewhere in the middle of the series I got used to it, and the picture gradually took shape. Well, the style here is like this – it’s done that way, and it’s quite interesting.
As a result, I watched with pleasure – a good series. However, I am not particularly enthusiastic, and I don’t understand the statements of some critics that this is almost the best series of recent years, along with The Amazing Mrs. Maisel, but, in my opinion, it is quite worthy of viewing.
It is interesting that the first season was filmed almost as a complete story and it seems that there was no continuation, but it has two more seasons (the third one is still being filmed). The second season, as it were, I didn’t really want to watch – I thought that they could do something else there – but I watched it. His history is ambiguous. The first four episodes are good. Cool sequel, interesting to watch. The fifth episode is complete debilizm: as if the script was allowed to be written by the junior assistant of the senior janitor. I looked and could not believe my eyes – WHAT THE FUCK IS GUYS?! What kind of bullshit is this?
The rest of the episodes, on the one hand, almost returned to the old course, but at the same time they are still completely stupid, and the end of the season is to hug and cry. So I would recommend watching the first season – and forget about this series.
They are filming the third season there – I’m definitely not going to watch it after the second season.
Barry movie meaning
Director: Bill Hader, Alex Berg Cast: Stephen Root, Glenn Fleshler, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Mark Ivanir, Bill Hader, Sarah Goldberg, Anthony Carrigan, Henry Winkler, Andy Carey, Rightor Doyle, Alejandro Firth, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Paula Newsom
Series, USA, 2018, 30 min. 8 episodes, 240 minutes