It’s startling how many laughs Hawke generates — and, for that matter, how funny The Good Lord Bird is as a whole, given its subject matter. Hawke, Richard, and their other collaborators (among the directors: Albert Hughes, Kevin Hooks, and Haifaa Al-Mansour) have managed to retain the satirical spirit of McBride’s book. They derive most of the comedy from the self-importance of Brown himself, and from the hypocrisy of all the free characters. Men who profited from slavery are held up as figures of ridicule (Steve Zahn has an entertaining guest spot in the second episode as a bandit who develops a crush on Onion), but so are members of the abolitionist movement itself. (As he travels with Brown to Northern fund-raiser meetings, Onion can’t help noticing that the only black person in the room besides himself tends to be a butler.) Daveed Diggs is suitably pleased with himself as the great Frederick Douglass, who in this context can act almost as concerned with the perks of his own celebrity as he is with freeing his fellows; his performance is so assured that it allows this cartoonishly violent pulp story to transform itself into a slamming-door bedroom farce for a bit.
"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “isn't this just like your dream of turning the classic book Manhunt into a comedy?"
I still say this should be a movie, and a funny one at that. A mix of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the British Union soldier who keeps volunteering to take Booth on one-on-one, oh by the way he had also cut his own nuts off), and the Simpsons (Sideshow Bob as Booth, Homer as his doofus companion Herold.) The shit writes itself; including the ongoing joke that no matter how gruesome a scene one is describing, or how much they claim Booth is the devil himself for what he's done to the country, nobody can go too far without off-handedly remarking how incredibly handsome he was. ("The flames whipped around Booth as I set my sight on him a final time, preparing to end this 12-day national nightmare...I closed one eye and focused on his face...which was, I must say, pleasant to look at...luminescent, really...")
A lot of the filming took place in Richmond, which Hawke seemed to enjoy:
My wife and I have lived in many places over the years, making movies all over the world. And I can say that there is no more welcoming community than Richmond, Virginia. The restaurants, the energy of the Fan and the surrounding areas were so much fun. Our whole family loved swimming in the James, watching films at the Byrd Theatre, playing pool at Greenleaf Pool Hall, playing basketball at Virginia Commonwealth University, visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, running on Belle Island, and eating lots of delicious meals at Kuba Kuba.
Watching Episode 1 tonight, motherscratchers!!
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