AMC’s “Hell On Wheels” is one of the season’s bigger disappointments, a Western mostly about a former Confederate soldier plotting vengeance for the rape and murder of his wife – even as he supervises former slaves building the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad.
It comes to us from brothers Joe and Tony Gayton, who scripted the 2010 Dwayne Johnson vehicle “Faster” (27% positive reviews among top critics on Rotten Tomatoes!). It stars Anson Mount (“Line of Fire,” “Straw Dogs”), Colm Meaney (“Deep Space Nine,” “Get Him To The Greek”), Common (“Terminator Salvation”), Dominique McElligott (“The Philanthropist”) and Ted Levine (“Silence of the Lambs,” “Monk”).
“Wheels” is one of the least politically correct series on American TV. The native Americans are introduced as perfectly despicable bloodthirsty savages, the term “nigger” finds its way into a lot of dialogue, and there’s even a curse word in the show’s title.
The best thing about its first episode is a harrowing Indian attack. The project struggles, though, almost everywhere else, offering bland characters, clumsy dialogue and plotting that holds few surprises.
Its titles are almost desperately evocative of HBO’s much better “Deadwood.”
(It’s slightly interesting to note that AMC sort of got into the original-drama game in the “Deadwood” era with the 2006 Robert Duvall miniseries “Broken Trail.” Duvall told Howard Stern at the time that he hated “Deadwood,” whose pilot was directed by Walter Hill – the same guy who directed the “Broken Trail.”)
It was bound to happen sooner or later: AMC has a dud on its hands. ... 'Hell on Wheels' does one thing well: It's good at being tedious. … The problem is, while 'Hell on Wheels' is clearly trying to evoke Western archetypes and aesthetics, in most respects it displays a startling lack of imagination. The narrative and dialogue contain an almost fatal mixture of blandness and clumsiness, and aesthetically speaking, the drama is pedestrian and derivative. …
... establishes itself as a show that will spell out everything because it doesn't expect its audience to put in much mental effort. That seems appropriate, in that "Hell on Wheels" itself is a show that puts in the absolute minimum amount of effort to do what it wants to do. It's adequate - certainly no more and probably no less - and seems content with that. Were you to tell me that someone was making a basic cable drama about the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, I could pretty much picture every detail of "Hell on Wheels" in my head - and the ones I couldn't are where the show just cribs from "Deadwood." ...
... It does not rethink the Western genre. It doesn’t even think the Western genre too heavily. If you are looking for originality, this railroad drama is not the train you want to board. …
Describing Hell on Wheels as "Revenge in the mud" makes it sound a lot more enjoyable than it is. AMC's sprawling but heavy-handed attempt to revive and redefine the Western (a newly hot TV-development trend) is solemn business indeed, with precious little wit or originality. …
Like a runaway train plowing into a station, Hell on Wheels (** out of four) is all noise and flash and blood and guts — and never mind surviving the ride, let alone enjoying it. ... look close, and you won't see a character who doesn't seem to have wandered in from some stock Western company, from the evil entrepreneur (Colm Meaney, who might as well been given a handlebar mustache to twirl), to the spunky widow (Dominique McElligott), to the lucky-charm Irish brothers ...
... “Deadwood,” which was written and created by David Milch and was a critical hit for HBO for three seasons starting in 2004, took all the conventions of the classic western and turned them upside down. “Hell on Wheels” takes many of Mr. Milch’s innovations and flattens them out — “Deadwood for Dummies.” The theme music is startlingly similar, if more muted, and so is the faded sepia and gray cinematography. ...
... Its name notwithstanding, Hell on Wheels is not going anywhere fast. ... As a tale of the transforming American West with a self-serving businessman at its center, "Hell on Wheels" bears some comparison to "Deadwood," but it's fundamentally a different animal, less intellectual or intimate, with all of the mud but little of the domestic detail. … The dialogue runs a gamut from the realistically offhanded to didactic speechifying to the weirdly stiff, and the actors suffer or thrive to the degree they're forced to cart around big ideas or simply to get on with their lives.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
AMC's dull, hackneyed 'Wheels' is a train to nowhere new … it will be interesting to see whether viewers find themselves too easily falling asleep... Likely to earn the nickname "Dull on Wheels" …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... While AMC's big new quasi-Western "Hell on Wheels" attempts a pale imitation of the baroque dialogue that made David Milch's "Deadwood" a hit for HBO, its failings go far deeper than the phony words coming out of the mouths of an otherwise able cast. …
Hands down the most intriguing show on the fall slate ... Though imbued with epic sweep, “Hell on Wheels” is a western at heart, even if that heart is cold. Plenty of guns, knives, arrows, scalpings — mixed with the incendiary socio-psychological wounds left in the Civil War’s wake. …
… Avoid ‘Hell’ ... derails the cable network’s momentum as a dealer of top-notch dramas. ...
… I don't know if it will catch on - westerns can be a hard sell - but it's another fine AMC choice. …
... will evoke inevitable comparisons to "Deadwood," both for its tone and subject matter. The net result, however, is only fitfully compelling, and for a series about trains periodically runs out of narrative steam in the later legs of the five episodes previewed. …
... the pilot isn’t very good. It’s flat, has flashes of action, then ends with a thud. Which, in turn, brings up the past. If you’re going to make a Western, you’re going to be compared to Deadwood, the HBO gem, no matter what you do. What Hell on Wheels doesn’t need, at this point, are comparisons to such greatness. It’s not even close to Deadwood. Period. …
10 p.m. Sunday. AMC.
960 Pages Under $20!!
