Comrade Detective

This Amazon series tells the tale of a pair of Romanian detectives investigating a murder.  The murderer wears a Ronald Reagan mask.  It is presented as a remastered and dubbed version of a 1980s TV show from the other side of the Iron Curtain.  It plays as communist propaganda, often hilariously so.  In one episode, the detectives tangle with an insane cult: Christianity.  In another, women run wild through the streets trying to get Jordache jeans.  A capitalist tries to explain Adam Smith's invisible hand and sounds like Gordon "Greed is good" Gecko from Wall Street.  Pepsi, VHS tapes, pop music, and more litter the series.  The sympathetic American character says she loves America despite the fact that everyone has AIDS, the violence, the starvation, the poverty, etc.  Oh, and she is really going to miss the wonderful food in Romania and the super sexy men.  It is the sort of ham-fisted propaganda one would expect from the Communists, which is why it is funny.

 

The makers were inspired by 80s movies where Soviets and Communists were frequent foes and decided to make a show from the other side of the Cold War.  What is sad is that, silly as it is, the faux makers have an abiding love for Romania and Communism.  Modern American filmmakers don't show anything like this love of country.  That's sad.  Modern movies are far more likely to focus on America's warts and scars than celebrate its beauty and achievements.  As an experiment, I typed 'pro-American Hollywood movies' to see what returned and picked the first result.  The Majestic - a movie where the House Un-American Activities Committee is the bad guy - made the cut as pro-American.  Okay.  The Kingdom, a movie that draws a moral equivalence between Islamic terrorists and the FBI Agents who hunt them down, made the list.  Shooter, a movie about corrupt government officials framing a patriot for a political assassination, made the list.  Black Hawk Down, a movie about a disastrous military engagement in Somalia, made the list!  By that standard, Midway - a movie about America defeating the Japanese navy during World War II - could be on a pro-Japanese movie list.  Ha!  The pool is SO bad that these qualify as pro-American.

 

It is tragic that the anti-Americanism and pro-Communist propaganda that is played for laughs in Comrade Detective is played seriously in Trumbo.