‘Preacher’: AMC’s New Comic Book TV Show Is A Slow Burn
In Preacher, Dominic Cooper plays Jesse Custer, a man of the cloth who doesn’t mind beating people to a bloody pulp. He possesses supernatural powers that may align him more closely with Satan than with God. There’s also an Irish vampire named Cassidy (Joe Gilgun). AMC’s latest comic-book adaptation, premiering on Sunday, is, like The Walking Dead, a violent fantasy with cartoonish exaggeration and a minimum of plot — at least judging by the four episodes made available for review.
Set against an arid Texas landscape, Preacher plays out like a revenge Western, although revenge for what is frustratingly vague. Jesse, the preacher of the title, is barely hanging onto his faith and his dwindling congregation; as the show proceeds, he’s visited by his ex-girlfriend, Tulip (Ruth Negga) and that Irish vampire Cassidy. In separate scenes, two strangers arrive and seem to be staking out Jesse, to … do what to him?
Related: Meet the Cast of ‘Preacher’ (Photos)
Jesse performs baptisms and meets with various members of the congregation, including Eugene (Ian Colletti), whose face has been disfigured by a shotgun-to-the-face suicide attempt. Viewers who’ve read the comic book on which the show is based know that Eugene’s nickname is “Arseface.” Speaking of the source comic: It was created by the Irishman Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillon. When I interviewed Ennis in 1996, Preacher was a breakout hit for DC’s Vertigo Comics line, in part because of its startling violence and bleak humor. Ennis told me: “We can get away with a lot because it’s selling well, but we’re constantly having to justify the violence, the sexual context, and the use of Christian icons.”
That was the mid-1990s; nowadays, what Ennis was up to is no longer very shocking. Prominent among the Preacher TV show co-producers are Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad, The Green Hornet), both big Preacher comics fans, and the series shares a little of Rogan’s blustery comic energy — a little, but not enough. The show diverges from the comic book in significant ways, but not in a manner that any sensible person (i.e., a nonfanatical fan) would complain about. You can sense that this adaptation has been lovingly assembled, but after the nicely energetic pilot episode, the pace of Preacher slows. There are tedious black-and-white flashbacks to Jesse’s youth as the son of a minister, and a little info on his early relationship with Tulip.
There are moments of wicked humor here and there — a very famous movie star gets blown up in the premiere — but too much of Preacher relies on close-ups of Cooper as a brooding, conflicted preacher who’s always on the verge of exploding with rage. Too much of the show consists of simmering, of waiting for things to happen — kind of like Fear The Walking Dead, come to think of it. Except Preacher is prettier to look at (it’s very well art-directed), and it’s more dry and dusty.
Preacher premieres Sunday night at 10 p.m. on AMC. Its regular time period will be Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
