{"id":588357,"date":"2026-07-16T08:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/588357\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:58:08","slug":"the-hawk-on-netflix-a-tin-pot-show-with-will-ferrell-stuck-in-the-bunker-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/588357\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hawk on Netflix: A tin-pot show with Will Ferrell stuck in the bunker \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The early years of the 21st century witnessed an explosion of gross-out, lowest denominator comedy, much of it emanating from the general direction of Will Ferrell<\/a>. Humour has since moved on \u2013 and so has Ferrell, who makes his first starring role in a scripted TV series with the atrocious Netflix golf romp, The Hawk<\/b> (Netflix<\/a>, Thursday). <\/p>\n

Ferrell is Lonnie \u201cHawk\u201d Hawkins, a golf veteran trying to get back to his glory days and struggling in a fast-changing world where golfers past their prime are the last thing anyone cares about.<\/p>\n

There are obvious parallels with Ferrell\u2019s own career as he tries to reboot the sports comedy formula that brought him such success with his sports comedy trilogy of Talladega Nights (Nascar), Blades of Glory (competitive skating) and Semi-Pro (basketball). <\/p>\n

But where those yuck-fests were elevated by Ferrell\u2019s boggle-eyed irascibility, The Hawk fails to soar: it\u2019s trying to replicate the magic of a genre whose time has passed and which could do with being put out of its misery. <\/p>\n

Ferrell does his best \u2013 or perhaps, does too much, as the flailing, potty-mouthed Hawk. But he has no chemistry whatsoever with Fortune Feimster, who plays his equally sweary new caddie (and who was excellent in a much better Netflix comedy, the Arnold Schwarzenegger series, Fubar). There are also thankless appearances by Jimmy Tatro as Hawk\u2019s son and golfing rival, Lance, and Molly Shannon as Hawk\u2019s ex-wife \u2013 whose only defining trait is her obsessive love for Lance. <\/p>\n

But while the cast is impressive \u2013 or at least diligent \u2013 the gags are non-existent. Often the script seems to consist of nothing beyond swear words and toilet references for Ferrell to spew out at maximum velocity. One early joke centres on Hawk skipping the funeral of his former caddie in order to participate in a contest \u2013 but it\u2019s all set up and no delivery. There is no explanation of why it is supposed to be funny beyond confirming that Hawk is a maniac with an out-of-control case of main character syndrome (although you can forgive him this as he is, in fact, the main character). <\/p>\n

You can tell that Ferrell feels something is off, too. In lieu of dispatching a barrage of zingers, he throws himself into the action, flailing around the place as if trying to summon the restless ghosts of all those beloved comedies with which he earned his reputation. But you can\u2019t go back: Hawk is a golfer living off the fumes of old glories, and so too is this series, which feels like a fading cover version of a novelty hit from decades ago. <\/p>\n

Comedy thrives on confidence. But The Hawk is desperately ungainly, with an air of desperation that emanates from every scene like a haze of sweat. It swings, it misses \u2013 and instead of winning the tin cup, Ferrell finds himself in a tin-pot show stuck in the bunker. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The early years of the 21st century witnessed an explosion of gross-out, lowest denominator comedy, much of it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,19,17,127,128,95820],"class_list":["post-588357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-netflix","tag-tv","tag-will-ferrell"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116928833558630586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}