Title: Getting Away With Murder
Released By: IFC (Independent Film Channel)
Mahogany Rating:
Reviewed By: Matthew Thomas

There is no shortage of sociopaths on television these days. From the title character Dexter on Showtime’s Dexter to Tony Soprano to, in a sense, Jack Bauer on 24, our appetite for the cool detachment of the sociopath is well fed. Now meet Seth Silver (John Gilbert) of IFC’s web comedy… A highly efficient, thrift store frump of an assassin operating in front of an all-too familiar Los Angeles backdrop. When he isn’t fulfilling contracts by utilizing just about every method of murder imaginable, Seth spends his spare time being mommy’d by his overbearing mother, Rhonnie (Gina Hecht), a well-known fixture on the “Shop From Home Network,” hanging out with his best friend, the slacker-hipster-womanizing-shoe salesman, Rex (Kian Mitchum), and longing for love, or, at least, a date with a nice girl. From this ripe soil grows quite the choking weed of conflict.

Hence, the comedy, which hits and misses. Rhonnie believes Seth works in a veterinary office, and he nurtures her delusion by changing into hospital scrubs before returning home. Ever the devoted mother, Rhonnie sees her son as a brilliant veterinary technician and all around good boy. She’s right on one count; Seth does perform his job brilliantly, just not the job she has in mind. There’s even a somewhat sad moment, more for the thoughtful viewer than the lethargic protagonist, when Rhonnie tells Seth that sustaining life is a most noble endeavor. The energy Seth expends to maintain this ruse and sustain his mother’s proud affection and the rest of the world’s ignorance of his true vocation might lead to an endlessly bland comedy of hackneyed errors on a more vanilla network. These types of situations do arise in Getting Away with Murder—having to step out on a date to clip a mark, for instance—but there isn’t any offstage buffoonery; they’re handled efficiently. Seth is too disaffected and cool for that sort energetic clumsiness.

The bright spot of the show is Rex, Seth’s best friend and fellow lackadaisical traveler. Where Seth is earnest to a fault, fidgeting like a schoolboy when in the presence of women, Rex leans into his shiftless existence, using his “Whatever” approach not only as justification for his inert life, which he considers to be one of freedom, but also as a romantic tool, cloaking himself in a playfully condescending and morally whimsical malaise enlisted in the service of gouging a series of bedpost notches impressive in anyone’s boudoir, let alone a lowly shoe salesman’s.

Add to this mix Seth’s boss, the faceless Kip (Eric Beck), who takes pleasure in cramping Seth’s style by assigning him contracts at inopportune times, and Lily (Misti Traya), Seth’s possible love interest who cutely flirts her way through Seth’s defenses, and a rival hit man who really enjoys his job, and you have a swirl of activity surrounding a protagonist who casually yawns it all off. If this is the spinal cord of the show’s humor, it won’t stretch too far before snapping. The dichotomy is humorous for a while but quickly loses its charm. Coupled with an editing style that is a bit too energetic and always willing to violently cut to a violent aside, one gets the feeling that beyond the show’s air of coolness, much like the sociopath’s cool detachment, there isn’t anything inside. All is not lost, however, as the show certainly has room for growth if it can, on the one hand, allow its characters to ripen beyond their types (shy hipster, sexy hipster, overbearing mother), and on the other, grow into itself by embracing its premise without constantly reminding the audience of that premise which, due to the emptiness at the core of a human who can kill casually while talking on a cell phone, may be a dupe, a ruse, and we wander in circles, laughing at Seth Silver and those who people both his open and secret worlds while they shrug at the vacuum that stifles and nurtures but also requires them to earn a paycheck.

- [ MT ] -