In my ambling review of earlier-21st-century TV shows that I missed when they were on cable, I've recently gotten to Leverage. It's not quite up to the level of Monk but didn't annoy me into turning it off after a few minutes like I did with Psych. In fact it's a solidly entertaining show. Just very silly.
The premise is that an insurance investigator (Timothy Hutton) gets drafted into mastermind a heist when he's down on his luck. It turns out to be a double-cross, but he recruits the crew he works with into acting as Robin Hoods, stealing to help those who need help.
Hutton started his acting career by playing a bereaved teenager in Ordinary People and won an Oscar for it. He brings as much Real Actor mystique to the role as he can, which largely entails his character being hung over or flat-out drunk in every scene. There's a certain mismatch in trying to play a real, conflicted person in a show whose character dynamics are mostly taken from Marvel and DC, the Buffyverse, and your lab partner's D&D campaign.
So like I said, silly. But that doesn't mean it can't be fun. Beth Riesgraf is consistently a joy to watch as Parker, a break-in artist with dodgy social skills.
2 comments:
Not having watched any of the series makes it difficult for me to express an opinion. However, your remarks about the show do make it sound interesting - maybe a bit similar to Mission Impossible (I know, I know.. there I go dating myself again when there's no similarity other than the fact there are heists involved... might as well go back to one of my favorite movies, Topkapi).
The series was highly regarded by whoever it is who does the imdb stats and I like the idea that each season told a complete story because they never knew if they might get cancelled. It always a good idea for the creators of a series to keep that in mind.
I can see that Tim Hutton (he looks a lot like his Dad) has had a long career, most of it we haven't actually witnessed. We even passed on watching Ordinary People for the simple reason it looked far too depressing. But I'll agree he's an experienced actor so appearing hung over or flat out drunk when he's not wouldn't be that difficult a feat. Beth Riesgraf's character sounds not dissimilar to Sofia Helin's unusual character in the Swedish series, The Bridge.
For a change of pace, you might enjoy this..
While the tone is a bit different, there's no need to apologize for the Mission Impossible comparison. It was a good show, my own preference being the first season when Steven Hill was the lead. As for Topkapi I have to admit that I've never seen it. Now I'm interested, though. The stills look very attractive. I know the director was an American who left the States when he was blacklisted.
It's true that doing a complete story in a season can bring a sense of completeness if you don't make it as long as you'd hoped. Assuming you're able to make a full season, of course. That might be an advantage of being on cable. Less chance of being cancelled midseason.
As I recall I actually saw Ordinary People in a high school religion class on death and the grieving process. Apt enough. He does resemble his dad, and there's an episode where he's dressed as Ellery Queen. There probably is a similarity between Riesgraf's character on this and Helin's on The Bridge, although they'd be on opposite sides of the law. Interesting that The Bridge was subtitled in both Denmark and Sweden.
Snow, balalaika, and a bear. Can't get much more Russian than that. You can see the bear's relation to dogs in that clip.
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