Can George Clooney’s Catch-22 TV series do the book justice?

Joseph Heller’s 1961 classic novel Catch-22 is darkly funny, moving and eye-opening, but what about the new TV series helmed by George Clooney? Entertainment reporter David Meddows reviews the new show, which airs on Stan.

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When we were assigned Joseph Heller’s 1961 classic Catch-22 in my high school English class, I read the book but, as an immature 16-year-old, everything in it pretty much flew over my head.

I remember being utterly confused and totally missed the significance of its message, the horrors and absurdities of war. I wasn’t particularly well-versed in satire at that time — or very much at all if we’re being completely honest.

George Clooney stars in the Stan series Catch-22. Picture: Philipe Antonello/Hulu

But after reading the book years later as an adult, the beauty of Heller’s story finally registered (and it was easy to see why it could be confusing to younger readers).

The story is told mostly through the eyes of Captain John Yossarian, a young US air force bombardier stationed on an island off the coast of Italy during World War II. Yossarian isn’t sold on the bombing runs he considers useless and the story focuses on his efforts to stay alive.

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Much of that involves strategies that delay dangerous missions — and he spends a lot of time in the base hospital trying to get discharged with a dodgy liver (when he can accurately determine where the liver actually is).

Catch-22, the widely used term coined by Heller, is in this instance the military rule that says military personnel can’t be in combat if they are crazy, but if they have enough presence of mind and concern for their safety to register and specify that, they are of sane mind and therefore not crazy.

George Clooney, Christopher Abbott and Kyle Chander star in Catch-22. Picture: Elisabetta Villa/Getty

The book is darkly funny, moving and eye-opening, but what about the new TV series helmed by George Clooney? Does it do justice to such an important piece of work?

Firstly, you are never going to satisfy everybody when you take on a project like this — never.

The series does a good job of capturing the horrors of war, there’s no doubt about that. It is shot beautifully and I’m sure the costume designers will be in for an award somewhere down the track.

It also has a brilliant cast with Christopher Abbott playing Yossarian, Kyle Chandler as Colonel Cathcart and Hugh Lawrie as Major de Coverley.

But you’d be forgiven for thinking this take on the acclaimed novel has removed much of the funny from the story. It often seems like a straightforward war story that has a few injections of humour thrown in. But the dark laughs in Heller’s novel are absolutely paramount to his story.

If you’ve read the book — at school or later in life — this is a must watch. It’s not bad, but it may have missed the mark a little.