Rabbit Hole

For a guy who was making films while I was still at school, Kiefer Sutherland has lasted the course far better than most other supposed nepo-babies. In an era where a once popular brand like Indiana Jones raises nothing but a shrug, younger readers might be surprised to know that Sutherland Sr has been a big cheese in movies since the 60s, but back when I was at school, his son’s earnest indie drama The Bay Boy was permanently glued to the shelves of my local video shop. Iconic roles in Stand By Me and The Lost Boys cemented Kiefer Sutherland’s stardom early, and even in standard issue thrillers like Renegades, Sutherland  always makes the material sing. Away from the big screen, TV has been a happy hunting ground for Kiefer Sutherland, from 24 to Designated Survivor, so the first episode of Rabbit Hole, a new series on Paramount Plus, promises much…

And episode one certainly delivers, with a few provisos. Sutherland plays John Weir, an international man of mystery who lives in New York and is a big wheel in the field of corporate espionage. In the opening sequence, we see him watching a (round-ball) football tv show in a classy bar while an aggressive finance guy demands to change channels to see share prices on the television. Weir ends up in bed with a woman he meets in the bar, but their one-night stand ends ugly. But in a double switch, Weir outs his seducer as a possible traitor, and it turns out the whole scene was an elaborate set-up to feed false information to the actual mark; the finance guy. It’s a very classy intro, although it hinges on the mark needing info from the telly that he can’t get from his phone, which seems like a big gamble even for risky corporate espionage…

But the more we find out about John Weir, the more we understand that he’s never the victim in espionage games, at least not until now…He’s a Jim Phelps character, with a team of performers who can make the impossible missions happen; there’s another slick AF sequence in which Weir manipulates two unsuspecting victims into appearing to collude, thus destroying a potential court case. Such ludicrously bespoke black arts make for good viewing, and as Weir’s office goes up in flames at the end of the first episode forcing him to go on the run a la The Fugitive, Rabbit Hole feels savvy enough to be worth continuing with…

And while this may not be the most groundbreakingly original show out there, with its 70’s conspiracy theory influences obvious from the get-go, if nothing else, Rabbit Hole continues Sutherland’s hot home entertainment streak with aplomb; I went to see him play live in his alt-country guise at the ABC venue in Glasgow less than a year before it burned to the ground, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a performer so rapturously received by a crowd. His musical abilities are genuine, but that never-ending welcome-home ovation came from the crowd’s deep-seated affection for the actor. Rabbit Hole feeds the need we have to see a beloved star kick ass, and that’s more than enough to lead us further into the downward spiral of today’s corporate intrigue…