“Catch-22” is, thankfully, not solely about war.
What George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s new limited series has to say about soldiers dying for their country isn’t as revolutionary as Joseph Heller’s words were when first published in 1961, even if Hulu’s six-part TV adaptation blends his divergent storytelling into one, largely chronological experience.
Scripts by Luke Davies and David Michôd do a fine job capturing the absurdity inherent to young men in the prime of their lives throwing themselves into danger for orders that don’t make sense and men they will never meet.The battle of perception, profit, and pride is what matters more than survival — but these observations, even when captured with a black comic wink, are dated.
Thankfully, this spin on “Catch-22” finds fresher relevance in exploring what it’s like to live as the sole sane person in a world filled with dangerous empowered insanity.
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