Atrocious mischaracterizations

No indeed. No.

It's not by accident. Found this tidbit from the writer.

"...Bezzerides wrote of the script: "I wrote it fast because I had contempt for it... I tell you Spillane didn't like what I did with his book. I ran into him at a restaurant and, boy, he didn't like me"

And quite deliberately so. They're depicting a corrupt world where even the official law is cold & unfeeling, concerned only with power & control. Hammer is the pathetically best sort of "hero" that such a world can offer, out for himself & just as brutal as those he fights. Anyone civilized or educated, even a little, is a victim here, from Christina to Trivago, and even to the villain Soberin - not one a match for the casual, sadistic cruelty of the world that brutalizes & kills them. And that casual, sadistic cruelty includes Hammer.