‘Catch-22’ Reviews

I can’t post the link to this ‘Washington Post’ review (only subscribers can access). I just read a review by its TV Critic Hank Stuever. A couple of quotes:

“... enjoyable and surprisingly poignant. A refreshing find.”

“Hulu’s version written and created by Luke Davies and David Michod and shepherded by Executive Producer George Clooney and others - strips ‘Catch-22’ down to its essential brilliance and then builds it back up into a sweeping, beautifully filmed, humorous yet tragic tale of a young man forever changed by war.”

This from the Guardian:

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Catch-22 review – George Clooney's dizzying, daring triumph
4/5stars4 out of 5 stars.
    
The actor-director’s visually impressive adaptation of Joseph Heller’s second world war novel is a violent, frenetic and disquieting small-screen satire

Adrian Horton
Thu 16 May 2019 02.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 16 May 2019 02.39 EDT

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 Christopher Abbott in Catch-22. Photograph: Philippe Antonello/Hulu
[size=89]There’s a moment late in Catch-22, as a second world war bomber returns from a mission over Italy, that I realized planes can land with their engines on fire. The plane, smoke trailing its left engine, wobbles to the runway, which seems ridiculous – if the fire is literally at hand, how can it just land normally? But apparently, that’s the way it is.

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That shot – extraordinary treated as normal, routine marred but not upended by disaster – captures, like many others, the pendulum of contrasts in Catch-22, Hulu’s limited series adaptation of Joseph Heller’s canonical 1961 novel. Executive produced and part-directed by George Clooney (with Ellen Kuras and Grant Heslov), Catch-22 enjoys a jarring cut – the lurch from control to chaos, tranquillity to brutality, upbeat swing music to ominous score, a sunbaked beach to lines like: “His eyes, there was no life flashing before them or anything like that. Just terror.” It’s a book that revels in the absurdity of war and impotent bureaucracy, which on the screen translates into an exquisitely filmed, disorienting send-up of our ability to rationalize insanity as just the way things are.


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 Watch the trailer for Catch-22 - video
This is, after all, a show that opens with a naked Christopher Abbott, streaked in blood and walking along the tarmac before promptly jumping back two years to basic training. John “Yo-Yo” Yossarian (Abbott) prepares to depart for the Mediterranean theater (in the show, both a physical location and a theatre for the arbitrariness of bureaucratic decisions and their dramatic consequences). Yo-Yo endures the indignities of training from General Scheisskopf (Clooney) with his best friend, Clevinger (Pico Alexander) before shipping out to the island of Pianosa, off the west coast of Italy. Unlike the novel, Hulu’s Catch-22 unfolds chronologically from 1942 to roughly 1944, as Yo-Yo and his compatriots fly an ever-growing number of missions over the Italian countryside, as ordered by the bumbling Colonel Cathcart (Kyle Chandler, remarkably both intimidating and idiotic) and apathetic Major de Coverley (Hugh Laurie).

But it’s not all death and destruction; in his satire of the military and the meaninglessness of war, Heller luxuriated in paradox and circular reasoning – “I mean, you know what I mean?” – and Clooney’s camera lingers on Yo-Yo and his time in the Mediterranean sun. There is sunbathing, dates in Rome and fresh tomatoes with olive oil, imported by the most ambitious mess hall supervisor of all time, Milo (Daniel David Stewart). Over time, Catch-22 establishes a distinctive, destructive pattern: lounge on the beach, jump into the water, fly another mission, maybe survive; count down the mission quota to get home, only to have it raised again; repeat. Yossarian wants nothing more than to go home alive, but the more he tries to inject free will or control into his military life, the more chaos ensues.

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 George Clooney in Catch-22. Photograph: Philippe Antonello/Hulu
It’s quite a famous catch, and Clooney’s adaptation is immediately impressive – visually deserving of a bigger than a laptop screen – with a cohesive, arid palette and shots ranging wildly in scope from resonant closeup to sweeping landscape. But it takes a couple of episodes to settle into the show’s polarizing rhythm, which is less a film-making issue than the high-level entry to the source material’s cunning conceit. A story about the seesaw of insanity, filtered through detached ridiculousness and aesthetic of a Mediterranean vacation, isn’t exactly accessible in the first 30 minutes; like Yo-Yo and Clevinger’s punishment in training – carrying buckets along the edge of a circle – it’s not easy to pinpoint where the loop starts and ends. Only when you calibrate to its repetitive satire do the points in Catch-22’s yo-yoing seriousness become clear – just in time to realize, by the third episode, that it’s not a circle after all, but a downward spiral.
Abbott, as the star, is a slow burn but ultimately fascinating as the frustrated Yo-Yo, his every grimace grounding the show’s destabilizing ridiculousness. Catch-22 is indisputably well-made, and above all a smart show, perhaps too smart for its own good – every shot feels considered, every head-spinning layer worth talking out to make sense of it.

Whether all those parts add up to compelling TV is, given Catch-22’s swift tone shifts, less a question of the show than what the audience wants from TV. It’s easy to imagine how some would find the brutal, nihilistic irony of the story grating, though if it were otherwise then it wouldn’t be an adaptation of Catch-22. The show spins ridiculous conversations into humor but pulls no punches with gore. And unlike other recent Hulu series such as Ramy or Shrill, or other portrayals of the second world war, Catch-22 doesn’t delve into character studies; though Clooney was wise to stretch the adaptation into six episodes, even Yossarian barely has a backstory, better to foreground his vacuous, unwinnable struggle but not for casual viewing.
That cycle can make you dizzy, and the dizzier you get – the more you align with Yo-Yo’s claustrophobic hamster wheel – the easier it is to keep going. It’s not for everyone, but as TV binge catches go, it’s close to the best there is.
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• Catch-22 starts on Hulu on 17 May with a UK date to follow
  

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[size=38]Scott D. Pierce: George Clooney’s ‘Catch-22’ is terrific, and he’s still the same great guy[/size]

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(Photo courtesy Philippe Antonello/Hulu) George Clooney stars at Lt. (later General) Scheisskopf in “Catch-22.”

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By Scott D. Pierce
 · Published: 29 minutes ago 
Updated: 29 minutes ago

George Clooney was surprised, back in January, to learn that “Grey’s Anatomy” was about to supplant “ER” as the longest-running medical drama in TV history.

“That’s got to stop!” he said with mock outrage. “We’ve got to go back and do some more.”

This came as he was surrounded by a group of reporters who were there to talk to him about his six-part adaptation of “Catch-22,” which starts streaming Friday on Hulu. A publicist kept telling us — at least a dozen times — that Clooney had to be elsewhere and we’d just asked our “last question,” but Clooney ignored her and just kept answering.



I’ve always loved Clooney. He’s always been open, funny, charming, unfailingly polite and astonishingly patient.

Sure, he wanted to promote “Catch-22” — he’s an executive producer, a director and he stars as Lieutenant, later General, Scheisskopf. And it’s a great miniseries that captures the hilarity and horror of Joseph Heller’s subversive 1961 novel about the insanity of World War II.



It centers on Capt. John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott), a B-25 bombardier who’s trying to remain sane as he tries to survive long enough to make it home.

It’s not just the enemy who could prevent that; it’s also officers like the parade-obsessed Scheiskopf and Col. Cathcart (Kyle Chandler), who keeps raising the number of missions that crews have to fly to be rotated back home.

And, by the way, Chandler is another of Hollywood’s amazingly good guys. Maybe less shy than he seemed in 1991, when he was a virtual unknown starring in “Homefront,” but he still has the same sort of ease, earnestness and humor. You almost believe him when he says he brought Clooney “coffee every morning” during production.



“Catch-22” is funny and dark simultaneously. The production values are amazing, and the performances and direction (Clooney, Grant Heslov and Ellen Kuras each helm two episodes) are great. It’s terrific television.


Clooney’s character is a pompous jackass; Clooney is anything but. Abbott joked that he went to IMDB.com to look him up and “It was, like, ‘Oh, you’ve done a lot.’ I didn’t know.” Clooney came back quickly:

“I’ve been working for a long time now. I’m very famous,” he said smoothly. “Big, big star. You just didn’t know that. You’re too young.”

Only Clooney — and maybe Tom Hanks — could say that without a hint of ego, just self-deprecating charm.

He seems like same guy I remember chatting with one-on-one nearly 27 years ago, when he was starring in a short-lived police drama, “Bodies of Evidence.” At the time, George’s father, Nick Clooney, was anchoring the news at KSTU-Channel 13 in Salt Lake City, and I asked George if he wanted me to tell his dad anything when I got home.

“Tell him I was really drunk and there were women hanging all over me,” George said with a laugh.



Neither was true. This was pre-”ER,” and — though he had a long list of TV credits (including “Roseanne” and “Facts of Life”) — his career hadn’t taken off yet. That happened two years later with the debut of what is now the second-longest-running medical drama in TV history.

“‘ER’ was a nutty moment in my career, but also in the lives of a bunch of actors,” Clooney said. “There were six of us who suddenly were thrust into the stratosphere, and it was life-changing for all of us.”

Since then, he’s won a couple of Oscars (with four more nominations), starred in movies like “The Descendants,” “Syriana,” “Michael Clayton” and “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Twelve” and “Thirteen”; directed movies like “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “Monuments Men” — and, yes, become a “big, big star.”

But not too big to joke about himself, and about making some new episodes of “ER.”

“Don’t you think that’s a good idea? I’d play a patient now,” Clooney said.

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[size=44]Review: Why George Clooney’s ‘Catch-22’ for Hulu may make you yell at the screen

By ROBERT LLOYD

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MAY 16, 2019 | 12:00 PM


 

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Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) is starkly out of uniform in a scene from the Hulu miniseries "Catch-22." (Philippe Antonello / Hulu)



Adaptation is interpretation, and interpretation by definition generates disagreement; no matter how well-supported the reasoning, I may never understand just why it is you chose to portray Oliver Twist as an 80-year-old woman or have Hamlet deliver his speeches backwards.
Nespresso spokesperson George Clooney, properly back on the small screen after a couple of decades, and his producing partner Grant Heslov, have turned Joseph Heller's 1961 satirical World War II novel "Catch-22" into a six-part miniseries, debuting Friday on Hulu. Produced and partially directed by Clooney and Heslov along with Ellen Kuras, and written by Luke Davies ("Lion") and David Michôd (the Australian film "Animal Kingdom"), it departs substantially from its print original.
Sometimes, this is for the practical reasons that any translation of a sprawling, densely populated book demands. But it also differs in spirit: If a friendlier, more dramatically and morally conventional "Catch-22," with a more relatable central character — the bombardier Yossarian (a solid Christopher Abbott), who only wants to get out alive, in the face of the Germans shooting at him from below and the superior officers oppressing him from above — is what you desire, this is it. Such a thing is, admittedly, not on my wish list, nor does this adaptation convince me it should have been.
Granted, “Catch-22” is as difficult to put onscreen, in its way, as James Joyce's "Ulysses,"since so much depends on language, and the illogical logical tricks you can play with it. ("He did not hate his mother and father, even though they had both been very good to him" is a typical Heller twist of thought.) There is a character in the book named Major — — de Coverley who in the TV adaption (where he’s played by Hugh Laurie) loses his redacted first names. A plane that "disappears into a cloud," permanently, in the book, is just another casualty here.



[size=19]ALSO: Why Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22’ is a relevant antiwar satire in the age of Trump »
Mike Nichols, with Alan Arkin as his Yossarian, took a starry, big-screen crack at it in 1970 — less than a decade after the novel's publication, and at a time when its themes jibed with the Vietnam anti-war movement — and was not successful, though his film does a better job than the present series at catching the book's tonal shifts, from absurdist comedy to bleak poetry. There was also an unsold 1973 TV pilot, currently available online, featuring Richard Dreyfuss, clearly made under the influence of "MASH," which, of course, had been made under the influence of "Catch-22."

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Daniel David Stewart, left, Kyle Chandler, right, and two young costars in "Catch-22." (Philipe Antonello / Hulu)

Here, Davies and Michôd have taken the novel's curlicue structure, which jumps around in time on the hinge of a stray thought, and straightened it out into a conventional chronology. This is sensible enough, though viewers have proved pretty adept at dealing with the flashbacks and flash forwards, not to say parallel realities and multi-level dream states, which more than a few modern television series employ.
The idea seems to have been to render a fairly realistic, even sentimental version of the book’s narrative highlights, with occasional brief forays into its Marx Brothers absurdities. There are some admirable things in the series, some of which reflect the source material, and some of which work on their own terms, but generally speaking, the better you know the book, the more likely you are to yell at the screen, in the later episodes especially. Where it strikes off on its own, whether in dialogue or wholly new scenes, it tends to get obvious and flat.
The book spends a lot of time in its people's heads — all but a few of its chapters are named for a character — but, apart from Yossarian, the series hangs around on the outside; most characters are barely developed. As a result, the fear and striving that characterize the show's superior officers — Clooney's parade-obsessed Lt. Scheisskopf (the name is a rude word in German) and Kyle Chandler's Col. Cathcart, who keeps raising his squadron's required number of missions — are only fitfully glimpsed. But each actor is at his best in scenes where his character is in the presence of someone who scares them. Their spittle-flecked ranting is less persuasive.
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For a contemporary reader, the novel’s great obstacle is its treatment of women, who exist mainly as sex objects, whether they're nurses, WACs or prostitutes. That's not to say all are devoid of dimension or agency — indeed, they can make the men look like dopes — but some of what the book treats lightly would be rightly recognized as sexual assault today. Still, apart from Tessa Ferrer's Nurse Duckett, who becomes a bemused foil to the sometimes goldbricking Yossarian, the solution here, such as it is, has been not to round out Heller's models but just to push the female characters into the background, or eliminate them altogether. (This also has the perhaps intended effect of making the male characters come off better.) The woman known in the book only as "Nately's lady of negotiable affection" gets a name here, and a certain tangential respectability — Nately (Austin Stowell) has practical plans to settle down with her — but she is also essentially an extra.

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George Clooney, left, Christopher Abbott and Pico Alexander in "Catch-22." (Philipe Antonello / Hulu)

The flight scenes are convincingly executed, with fleets of bombers navigating oceans of flak, and the dark drama of the pivotal scene focused on the wounded flyer Snowden (Harrison Osterfield) is well-handled. But the series is at its best when it most directly conveys the novel's lunacy, the "Who's on First?" bureaucratic reasoning that finds full flower in Catch-22 itself, a rule for all seasons — and a term that people who have never read the book use regularly — whose most famous expression is that any flier who is crazy can be grounded, but only if he asks to be; yet asking only proves his sanity, and so he must continue to fly.
Similarly, there is Maj. Major Major Major (Lewis Pullman), who will never see anyone when he's in his office, though visitors can go right in when he's out. Above all, there are the scenes involving Milo Minderbinder (an excellent Daniel David Stewart), the war-profiteering mess officer, whose exploits are so fantastic that there is no way to reduce them to ordinary drama; the miniseries does well by him.
Inevitably, much is left out. Sadly, some of that saved screen time is given over to problematic elaborations and inventions. These include a trip with Milo to Oran, which puts Yossarian and his tentmate Orr (Graham Patrick Martin) into tuxedos, in which the former is called upon to impersonate an industrialist; an idyll in an Italian country town, in which a wounded, recovering Yossarian, dressed in farmer's clothes, flirts with a farmer's daughter; a scene in which Clooney's Scheisskopf examines Yossarian's testicles in order to assess his claims of injury; and an ending markedly different from Heller's, which you will just have to see when, and if, you get there.[/size]

Very, very happy about these reviews. Can't wait to see the show.

Me too Doug Ross. Does anyone here have Hulu? I forget what media outlet overseas is televising it.

Well, what do we all think?

I finished watching it last night. Enjoyed it. I don't think it was groundbreaking filmmaking or anything, but it was well done. Considering the difficult source material, I think they made mostly good choices. Some of the scenes were repetitive, I thought, but that was probably the point. A little too light on characterization (I would have added another episode just for that), and Hugh Laurie's character could have been dropped and nobody would have noticed. A few other minor quibbles. But otherwise a good viewing experience.

And does anyone else think that Christopher Abbott looks like the love child of JFK Jr. and Chris Messina ('Danny' on The Mindy Project)?

I still haven't watched it.

Thanks Benex. Very nice! 

Ads for it now on Channel 4 - Coming soon type thing, but no dates....

Amazing picture here
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Does anyone know who directed which episodes? The last two episodes worked especially well for me and I was wondering who directed them.

Way2Old said she had a few minor quibbles. Me too. The most minor but definitely annoying was the modern-day haircuts on most of the men. I just found it a bit jarring that they all had such well groomed short haircuts at a time when men wore their hair longer and good haircuts on an army base were probably hard to come by. - Stupid little quibble but one I can share without spoiling anything for anyone.

LizzyNY wrote:Does anyone know who directed which episodes? The last two episodes worked especially well for me and I was wondering who directed them.

Way2Old said she had a few minor quibbles. Me too. The most minor but definitely annoying was the modern-day haircuts on most of the men. I just found it a bit jarring that they all had such well groomed short haircuts at a time when men wore their hair longer and good haircuts on an army base were probably hard to come by. - Stupid little quibble but one I can share without spoiling anything for anyone.

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Grant directed the 5th, George the 6th.

Thanks, Doug Ross. The last episode was where I was most impressed with Chris Abbott. Interesting to know George was the director.

I've watched the first 2 episodes and I've liked them a lot (even if I've found the last minutes of the 2th episodes quite pointless). Abbot is just amazing.

just finished catch 22, and i really loved it. so strong, and powerfull in meaning and well directed. i enjoyed the editing and the cinematography. what a surprise to see gio acting in the last episode, i didn't expect that!

That was the surprise Donnamarie and I didn't want to reveal until more of you had a chance to see him. He was really good , too!

It was such a surprise to see Gio In that last episode. I did a double take thinking that it couldn’t be him. But there he was. I suspect most viewers won’t know who he is. But WE do

Glad you liked it Doug Ross! I thought the last two episodes were the strongest and most poignant of the series. But I’ll hold off saying more until some others here have seen it.

I don't know is this count as a spoiler. So, if you haven't seen it yet, don't read. 


I finished the show last night. The last episode was my favorite too: I really like the joy of the beginning and the atrocity of the end (George did an amazing job with the plane scene). 

The show is a really good show, very well done and with great, great acting (again, Abbot is phenomenal. Tessa was great, too. She had a small role but she really made an impression). There are things I didn't like; for instance, I don't like what they did with George's character. In the first episode is mean and dumb, in the 5th (George was great, by the way) was still mean, but not dumb at all. 
I didn't like, in episode 5, all those cut to black and, in general, the way the zoomed in some scenes.
And, the ending of Kuras's episodes were pointless and senseless.

DougRoss - I wanted to go back and re-watch those two episodes to refresh my memory, but again I got an error code and don't have the patience to restore the site. Even so, I can say that the message Heller was trying to get across is that war is pointless and senseless. So maybe that's what Kuras meant to portray.

Sorry, I meant pointless in the way that they did not make any sense. I just though they could've been easily cut, especially with episode 2.

DougRoss - Don't be sorry. I think we might be talking about different things. What exactly did you think could be cut? I meant that the repetition of elements was used to show the cycle of tedium and terror of war and how so much of it was mind-numbing boredom.

The only thing I thought could have been cut without affecting the story much was Hugh Laurie's part . It's funny and shows how self-involved Yossarian is, and Laurie is great, but then it just fizzles away. IMO not handled too well.

Lizzy, I meant the ending of the episodes Kuras directed. For example, one of these ends with a dialogue between Yo-Yo and the priest, and they talk about Clevinger for 5 seconds. I thought it was useless: if you have to film such a short conversation (that really meant nothing), why bother? Just cut it.

Doug Ross - I think that scene was meant to show Yossarian's frame of mind - how he was becoming more and more frustrated and depressed - and how the chaplain couldn't reach him. His depression deepened every time someone close to him died, but nothing else seemed to change. He was still expected to keep flying no matter what he did.

Yes, I know that, but I found it to be too short and therefore quite useless.
Yossarian's depression was already clear, so it was it's frustration. 

Anyway, I'm glad that I'm the only one who didn't like those endings, maybe it was just my thing.

I'm sure you aren't the only one who feels that way. Thee are things in the series that I thought weren't developed enough, too - like Hugh Laurie's part. Maybe after more people see the series you'll find more people agree with you.

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........also describes George and company at the shopping centre cinema..............

It's too bad they felt that showing the first and last episodes would be the best way to showcase the series. IMO it kind of spoils it if you then watch the whole thing.

PAN, have you seen it yet?

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........also describes George and company at the shopping centre cinema..............

What "Scheisskopf " means?

Isn't he one of the soldiers in Catch 22?

Episode One is on Thursday here in the UK, Lizzy..

PAN - It's the part George plays in the series. I hope you get to watch, but I don't recommend binge watching the whole series. It's a bit too intense to sit through in one go.

Doug Ross - Sorry for the bad language, but "Scheisskopf" means "shit head". George seems to think it's very funny for him to play that part.

Definitely an appropriate name for the character. Thanks, Lizzy.

PLEASE DONT READ IF YOU HAVENT SEEN THE SHOW!

Enjoyed reading comments from those who have seen Catch 22. My little bones to pick with the series ... IMO I wish that George had played Col. Cathcart instead of Kyle Chandler. Chandler is an excellent actor but the role is really perfect for George. I just think he could have brought a bit more absurdity to Col. Cathcart.. I thought Chandler underplayed the character. George is a natural. He’s had lots of experience courtesy of the Coen Bros. movies. I understand why he didn’t because he wanted to focus on directing. To his credit he did play Scheisskopf as a true bad ass. As has been already said by others here I also thought Hugh Laurie’s role was a missed opportunity. Laurie is great at playing quirky and exaggerated characters. He really didn’t get a chance to show his stuff in his role as Major de Coverley.

That being said I thought the show was really well written and directed. The cinematography and sets were terrific. The acting was solid. The more I thought about it I am really glad that the story played out in a chronological timeframe. It’s such a challenging story to tell as originally written. In this series it was easier to get to know and understand the characters and to follow Yossarian’s struggle to understand how crazy his predicament was becoming as time went on.

I haven't read the book yet: it's not written in chronological order?

Lizzy, I don't do binge watching - ever.  I might end up with an unwanted degree in advertising techniques - or fall asleep with the boredom of them!

But I might have to figure out catch up stuff as I'm usually out on Thursday evenings..........

Doug Ross - No, the book is not written in chronological order. It isn't an easy book to read. I read it  in school years ago but didn't remember it well, so I tried to read it again before watching the series. I just couldn't get into it.

PAN - I thought they sold the series to streaming services like Hulu where you can watch whenever you want. I didn't realize  it was being shown on a regular network. Maybe you can record it to watch later - or else make a schedule change so you can stay home Thursday nights.

PAN, I assumed too that you’d be watching it in a streaming format. So how is it being televised in the UK? Is it being shown it on Thursday nights for six weeks?

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[size=48]"An almost perfect series" - What the critics are saying about Catch-22[/size]
21 NOV 2019 | SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT |  PDF    ISSUED BY: SHOWMAX
[*]#75 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the Best TV Shows of 2019 So Far

[*]Nominated for two Emmys, 2019

[*]Produced by Oscar winners George Clooney and Grant Heslov

[*]"Catch-22 is an almost perfect series. Every actor is bringing their A-game to the table and the writing is absolutely top-notch." Forbes

[*]"Indisputably well-made", a "dizzying, daring triumph." The Guardian

[*]

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Catch-22, nominated for two Emmys in 2019 and currently #75 on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the Best TV Shows of 2019 So Far, is now streaming on Showmax.

The six-part mini-series tells the story of John “Yo-Yo” Yossarian, a young bombardier off the coast of Italy in World War II, whose frantic obsession every time he goes up on a mission is to come down alive. His odds of success at such a simple aim keep getting worse, because Colonel Cathcart keeps raising the number of missions the men have to fly.

More than the retreating Germans, the real enemy for Yossarian and his rag-tag bunch of friends is the bureaucracy of the military, inverting logic at every turn. The pinnacle of this is Catch-22, a military by-law which states that if you willingly fly your missions, you’re crazy, and don’t have to fly them; all you have to do is ask. But if you ask, that proves you’re sane, and so you have to fly them.

Here are three reasons why critics love the show, which has a 87% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes:

1. It’s “true to the essence of the book”

The series is based on the wonderfully sharp, maddening 1961 Joseph Heller anti-war classic, Catch-22. At once comic and tragic, it’s a dark farce about the absurdity of war as well as the institutionalised idiocy and bureaucratic lunacy that fuels it.

Adapting Catch-22 was a big ask – no one has been ambitious or mad enough to try since Mike Nichols’ 1970 movie version. "The truth is, the book is a big, sprawling, beautiful mess of a book," series actor-director-producer Grant Heslov (Argo) told BBC News.

Australian screenwriters and series developers Luke Davies (nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for Lion) and David Michôd (a Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for Animal Kingdom) opted to tease a single POV chronological story out of Heller’s frenetic narrative.

As The Hollywood Reporter says, the writers “manage to find the difficult tonal balance of the book: a winning combination of satire, madcap bombast and deep existential angst... staying true to the essence of the book.”

2. “Every actor is bringing their A-game”

"Catch-22 is an almost perfect series," says Forbes. "Every actor is bringing their A-game to the table...”

Yossarian is brought to life by Christopher Abbott (First Man, The Sinner). “Abbott’s Yo-Yo is grounded and underplayed, in contrast to the blackly comic craziness around him, which pays off hugely,” says Empire.

Oscar-winning actor George Clooney plays the bombastic General Scheisskopf (yes, it means exactly what you think it does); triple Golden Globe winner Hugh Laurie (House M.D.) is the somewhat checked-out squadron executive officer, Major de Coverley; and Emmy winner Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) plays the bane of Yossarian’s increasingly imperilled existence: the promotion-obsessed and recklessly gung-ho group commander, Colonel Cathcart.

Also look out for Oscar-nominated Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini (Quantum of Solace, Hannibal) as the zen, amoral brothel owner, Marcello, and Heslov as the sympathetic Doc Daneeka.

3. It’s “indisputably well-made”

“Catch-22 is indisputably well-made,” says The Guardian.

It’s no wonder considering the team driving the project. Clooney has won four Golden Globes and two Oscars, including the Best Picture award for Argo, which he co-produced with Heslov and Ben Affleck. Here, Clooney and Heslov share the exec-producer credit as well as the directing, the latter along with producer Ellen Kuras, who’s directed on Umbrella Academy, Legion, and Ozark.

The series was produced by Anonymous Content, the powerhouse behind Oscar winners like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and [i]The Revenant[i], as well as series like the Golden Globe-nominated [i]True Detective and Golden Globe winner Mr. Robot.

As The Guardian says, the result is a “dizzying, daring triumph... an exquisitely filmed, disorienting send-up of our ability to rationalise insanity as just the way things are.”

“Catch-22 is magical, maddening, tender, and caustic in equal measure,” says The Atlantic. “Its upside-down logic confronts you with the beauty of life and the monstrousness of a war, whose only objective is to snuff that beauty out at every opportunity.”

Watch the trailer:



Binge Catch-22 on Showmax: https://www.showmax.com/eng/tvseries/9rhv1fl2-catch-22.

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