Watch Now
Where To Watch
| Buy on |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
HBO bills Hung as a comedy, but it uses comedy the way it uses sex--to set up darker, more interesting and complex points. It's amazing how many of those are out there.
-
Thomas Jane and Tanya Skagle's performances aside, Hung remains, despite all efforts to inform it with larger meaning, trapped in being all about just what that title says.
-
Since the show steadily improves as the first few episodes progress, Hung can hardly be written off as a failure.
-
Thomas Jane, though, is a revelation--he plays hopeless haplessness without coming off wimpy, and his initial uncomfortableness as a pro gigolo is charming. But Hung's awkward tone becomes frustrating.
-
Hung, despite some droll humor and the occasional dry insight, is even more of a disappointment.
-
It's possible that Hung will lighten up as time goes on. The weak ending to Sunday's pilot is trite and feels like a half-hearted effort to be uplifting. It doesn't work.
-
That is profound stuff--if only the series did a better job of capturing it. The idea that all he has to sell is himself is an interesting one intellectually, but it doesn't play very well onscreen.
-
It’s not impossible that the show might become, as it seems intended to be, a sitcom take on Susan Faludi’s Stiffed, a perverse fable about the way a man emasculated by the economy learns to strut. But to do that, it would have to have a grander, more empathic vision of the world around Ray. Right now, it just doesn’t go deep enough.
-
Lacking the poetic and poignant touch that might help make the ridiculous sublime or the sublime ridiculous, HBO, under cover of a dangerous and racy premise, has created a middlebrow comedy that, like its main character, looks good but has little to say.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 51 out of 75
-
Mixed: 16 out of 75
-
Negative: 8 out of 75
-
KittyCAug 23, 2009
-
EstherMSep 21, 2009
-
ZackWAug 1, 2009