There’s a pervasive question repeatedly asked through “House of Hammer”: How did Hollywood’s Golden Boy seemingly turn into a pariah overnight?
Unfortunately, this three-part Discovery+ docuseries has little new to say on its subject — or the themes of power and abuse — because we’ve seen this narrative play out numerous times before. Hell, even just this week actor Shia LaBeouf, accused of abusive behavior by an ex-lover, embarked on a redemption tour in the hopes of reshaping his own narrative. Bad behavior from Hollywood’s It boys didn’t start or end with the “Call Me By Your Name” star.
Then again, “House of Hammer” is about a generational legacy all its own. When Hammer himself came to prominence in 2010, with the release of David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” much was made about his connection to Los Angeles’ prominent Hammer family. As this project will remind you continuously, Armie Hammer is the great-grandson of Armand Hammer, the head of Occidental Petroleum. The crux of “House of Hammer” is that going as far back as Armand’s own father, the Hammer family has been filled with criminals and abusers.
But for the repeated reminders that this is practically ingrained in the family’s DNA, the docuseries spends far more time talking about Armie than his other family members. And the problem is it’s only interesting from that perspective if you know absolutely nothing about Armie Hammer or his actions between 2020-2021. “House of Hammer” ends up playing like a Cliff’s Notes version of far better, and more in-depth, articles by Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone that detailed the Hammer clan and Armie Hammer’s own actions.
Here, audiences are treated to the standard documentary barrage of Instagram clips and newsreels, playing like Hammer was “The Tinder Swindler” or some other Netflix doc subject. A few journalists are presented as experts but they have just as much weight as random Instagram creators whose brands became telling the story of the Hammer family. The biggest bombshell, hyped heavily in the trailers, is the story of Casey Hammer, Armie’s aunt and daughter of Julian Hammer. Casey Hammer’s story of allegedly seeing her father physically abuse her mother, and the Hammer family’s alleged history of excessive partying and drugs has already been told elsewhere, so there’s nothing particularly revelatory about her on-camera appearance and declaration that she’s going to “blow up” the Hammer narrative, including the heavily hyped reveal in Episode 2 of sexual abuse allegations.
Armie Hammer at the 2019 Film Independent Spirit Awards
Getty Images
Too often with Discovery’s attempts to capitalize on important pop culture cases while they’re happening, there’s a fair level of what I call public info reporting, wherein the creatives just pull from what’s on social media and already reported to guard against being sued for talking out of turn. If you watched their last documentary, on the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, a similar tactic is on display there. This makes it hard to see why someone would watch a 3-hour docuseries when they could watch The Zen Blonde’s (a source on this doc) TikTok series instead. Nearly everything told by Hammer’s alleged victims are either from YouTube videos they posted, or, in the case of on-camera interviews with ex-girlfriend Courtney Vucekovich, are already online. While in 2019 it was said the target audience for Discovery+ was between 25 and 54, there’s a feeling that this is aimed at an older audience, or at least one not keyed in to social media.
The only time the doc tries to assert something new is Vucekovich recounting a dinner with Armie Hammer and his mother. An argument allegedly took place between Hammer and his mother, resulting in allegations that — played right before a scene of Casey Hammer talking about sexual abuse — implies that Armie Hammer himself might have been the victim of molestation. However, the next episode never mentions that moment again. On the one hand, it’s a cheap way to titillate an audience to watch the finale, while on the other it’s a unique claim the creators clearly had no proof of and feared retribution from.
But it sums up the call-and-response nature of this entire series. The talking heads play up “shocking” stories and how they never foresaw the horrors to come and yet the level of hype never translates to what is actually being discussed. There are elements that are interesting, such as Armand’s father’s connections to the founding of the Communist party, or how Armand Hammer got close to Prince Charles and Princess Diana. But considering how we see the horrific exploits of rich people play out on television every day it all feels kinda…tame? That’s not to say the allegations against Armie Hammer, or the stories of Julius Hammer’s alleged abuse of his wife aren’t terrible, but one would expect some type of “Eyes Wide Shut”/Black Dahlia-level events with how things are hyperbolized.
“House of Hammer” is for the person who doesn’t know much about popular culture, doesn’t spend time on social media, and watches a lot of Discovery+. It’s a Google search for people who don’t want to read a lengthy article. That’s fine. But selling it as the multigenerational story of a family with all the horrors of the Marquis de Sade is a bit of a stretch.
Grade: C
“House of Hammer” streams on Discovery+ September 2.
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