WHAT do you get if you mix sugar and rum?
A Mojito? Sure.
“Cane“? Definitely.
Tonight is the premiere of a very good, new serial family drama, “Cane,” which has been called everything from a modern-day “Dynasty” or “Dallas” to a Cuban-American “The Sopranos.”
Let me be the first to disagree. “Cane” is much less. And much more.
“Cane” can stand on its own.
Much of the time, Hispanic-Americans – like Italian-Americans – are made to look like thieves, murderers, drug traffickers and brutes, which “The Sopranos” – great as the show nevertheless was – contributed to greatly.
“Cane” is a more balanced view of family life and family business. For the Cuban-American Duque family, that business is sugar cane and its logical offshoot, rum.
Rum is the glamour, sugar is the money crop. If things get nasty, well, that’s the price of doing business – right?
The family which is more Corleone than Soprano – in lineage anyway – consists of dad Pancho (Hector Elizondo), mom Amalia (Rita Moreno), three sons (one adopted) and a daughter.
Of the sons, Alex Vega (Jimmy Smits), adopted by the Duques after the Cuban airlift, is the strongest. He’s Michael and Tom Hagen combined.
Then there is Frank (Nestor Carbonell), the Fredo of the family, but with a lot more cunning and smarts.
Henry (Eddie Matos) is the Duques’ own personal Sonny, who owns nightclubs where the family rum is featured.
Their gorgeous sister, Isabel (Paola Turbay), we learn, broke up adopted brother Alex’s wedding when she was just 17 to claim him as her own. They’ve been married long enough to have three kids of their own (which is much skeevier than it’s presented here).
The siblings of the siblings are Jaime, (Michael Trevino) a recent grad who’s been accepted to MIT, Katie, (Lina Esco), a gorgeous and so-far responsible, teen and little Artie, (Samuel Carman), a baseball whiz.
The rivals for the family business are the Samuels, made up of dying bad guy dad, Joe (Ken Howard), and rotten kids Ellis (Polly Walker of “Rome“), who’s screwing around with Frank Duque, and Lamont (Lee Tergensen) who is screwing around with the business.
The Samuels want the vast Duque lands at any price – which Frank is all for, since he prefers the sexy rum biz to the un-sexy sugar biz. But Alex is dead set against.
He’s learned the reason the Samuels are so hot for the land is because the government wants to turn sugar into the next energy fuel. White gold.
What with brother against brother maybe they should rename it “Cane & Abel.”
I hope CBS can keep this terrifically cast, intriguing series around long enough to attract an audience.
“Cane”
Tonight at 10 on CBS