One of the Internet’s greatest tragedies before today was the lack of Google search results for “Robert De Niro Nazi.” Not calling him a Nazi, mind you, but for movie/TV show spinoffs starring Bobby D in which Jake LaMotta boxes with Odilo Globocnik in Raging Heck Cattle, or Jimmy Conway breaks some hodens in Goebbelsfellas. As if not only sensing this unfortunate circumstance, but also how long it’s been since we here at Warming Glow have used the “Nazis” tag, Showtime is developing a “neo-Nazi drama” described as “American History X meets The Town” called The 4th Reich, to be produced by De Niro and his business partner, Jane Rosenthal.
It’s a crime thriller delving into race, religion, and politics through the lens of a dogmatic faction of the neo-Nazi movement in South Boston. When a former leader is sprung from jail by agreeing to become an informant to the FBI, he assimilates back to his old life and finds his estranged 15-year-old son has been co-opted by his former best friend and now current leader of the Brotherhood. The trajectory of the series will track the central character caught between two worlds as he starts to gain perspective and change. (Via)
We need another gritty Boston drama about as much as we do Aerosmith’s 47th studio album, BUT too often, our Nazi antagonists are on shows on CBS or ABC, so when they inevitably get their violent comeuppance, you don’t feel it as much as you do in, say, a movie like Inglourious Basterds or even Justified. On Showtime, that Nazi blood’s going to flow. Unless the Nazis win, in which case: can I interest anyone in City by the Sieg Heil?
