If Looks Could Thrill

The show’s premise is absurd; but it’s brilliant and hilarious.

Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt made a fake ’80s Romanian Communist propaganda buddy-cop TV show that they went and shot in Romania with Romanian actors and then dubbed with their own voices.

By showcasing ideas that run contrary to Western ideas on sex, commerce, and religion, the show lifts a small (iron) curtain on anti-capitalist critiques through the prism of solid narrative, excellent actors, and hilarious tropes.

The show plays into the popular movement in Western society against the  effects of irresponsible capitalist practices that lead to inequality among economic classes in liberal society. The rising revival of socialist worldviews on the big and small screens – from The Americans and Comrade Detective to Red Sparrow and The Young Karl Marx – may be an indicator of an appetite for ethical economics and social equality in the wake of movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.

In this way, Comrade Detective is a brilliant addition to the slow tide that is questioning the way media propaganda is used in Western liberal society to influence citizens to give up their rights in the name of freedom.

And Daniel Craig plays the villain. Doesn’t get better than that.