I love Leverage. It’s fast-paced, funny and intelligent.
Leverage is a new TNT series from writers Dean Devlin and John Rogers. You may Rogers from his blog, KungFu Monkey.
The Leverage preair popped up a few days ago along with the preair for another new TNT series, Steven Bochco‘s Raising the Bar.
Leverage is a knock out. If it was a movie, you might call it a caper film or heist picture. As the reviews come out, I’m sure we’ll see references to Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, to the Mission Impossible tv series and maybe even To Catch a Thief.
The dialogue is witty, the plot takes unexpected twists and the good guys win in the end. Or are they bad guys? But that’s a standard feature of this type of show — our characters operate outside the law but they’re on the side of right nonetheless.
The casting is pretty excellent. I have developed a huge crush on Timothy Hutton on the basis of the single episode I saw. And I’m also crazy about Aldis Hodge.
I can’t wait for you to see this show. It’s easy entertainment, lie back on the couch and let the fun wash over you. From tease to tag, I couldn’t wipe the silly grin off my face. But as entertaining as it may be there’s some theme in there too and the characters are interesting and complex.
As we get closer to the December launch date I hope to have time to do a full-on breakdown of this one. I sure hope there is Canadian pickup.
You can watch a sneak peak on the TNT website, but it does not come close to doing the series justice.
Bill Cunningham
I was lucky enough to see an earlier cut of the pilot at a screening, and I’m anxious to see this pre-air as i know they were going to do a little bit o’ tweaking.
It’s a good mix of HUSTLE with OCEANS 11.
And how can you not like Gina Bellman (JEKYLL) in this? She looks like she’s having as much fun as ever.
OutOfContext
I “stumbled upon” the pre-air, thanks to your tip. I’ve been reading Kung Fu Monkey, for a while now, following the show development there.
This was fun, no doubt about it. I definitely thought ‘MI’, but there was more humor, some of it over the top, yes, but not jarringly so.
This has to be both fun and torturous to write.
Nigerians? Yes.
admin
Nigerians. Exactly. I thought that was witty, but not oversold. I just love this show’s tone.
And I think I may like Gina Bellman better here than in Jeckyll — she has more to do. It’s a part she can really drive.
I’m really sorry we have to wait till December for more of Leverage.
Robbo
Loved it before I saw Gina Bellman in it – loved it more when she stepped on screen.
I would have said a cross between “Hustle” and “A-Team”, what with the fightin-fer-da-underdog theme that rides through it.
Deftly done. My only quibble was with the glib and rapid wrap-up where they decide not to part ways and remain a team. The final scene with the grieving parents was good – it was the pseudo-snappy banter just before that. Too quick, too easy, but maybe that’s just me realizing it was about to end and Ms. Bellman was about to leave my screen.
Cheers.
admin
A Team! I wish I’d thought of that reference. I loved that show.
Yeah, it wrapped up rapidly. But we know it’s going to series and that this was all to set up the premise and what came before was strong enough for me to forgive that part.