Entertainment

NEXT ‘BEAST’ THING

‘THE Beast,” the much-an ticipated A&E show star ring the remarkably resilient Patrick Swayze, will become – I’m happy to report – Swayze’s Mickey Rourke moment.

The man who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and who, according to a source on set, managed during the worst of the treatments to show up day after 12-hour day – and perform many of his own stunts – is trying to prove something, it seems.

With a diagnosis as dire as Swayze’s, he wants to prove that he is better – far better – than the horrible TV movies that have been thrown his way like bones to a street dog this past decade.

And if, God forbid, “The Beast” is the last of his work – which, given his strength, is unlikely – he will leave a beast of a body of work.

“The Beast” is weighted down by a concept that was already tired when Moses was a teenager -wizened, jaded rogue cop teaches rookie the ways of the streets and blah, blah, blah.

But Swayze brings to the role, as Rourke did in “The Wrestler,” the kind of seriousness that only real-life suffering can impart.

Gone is the actor who was kicked to the curb by Hollywood after a brilliant start. In his place is a ruggedly handsome, lined, tough guy who breaks through the often excessive and silly dialogue.

Lucky for A&E they’ve got him because, without him, the show is so over-the-top, so nutty that you’d have to be crazy to buy a minute of it.

Here, we have rogue FBI undercover operative, Charles Barker (Swayze), and his rookie sidekick, Ellis Dove (a credible Travis Fimmel), feeling out how to work together.

In the meantime, Dove is being recruited by the head feds to turn on his new partner, because they suspect Barker has gone rogue.

Barker and Dove divide their time between drawing guns on other undercover cops while yelling, “Don’t shoot,” and getting lap-dances in strip clubs.

Half their conversations take place on subway platforms as the train doors are closing. (Why, for God’s sake, doesn’t someone just get off the train and finish the damned conversation once in a while? There’ll be another train along in a few minutes.)

Barker and Dove also live in a land (that would be Chicago) where no one is allowed to pull away from a curb without spinning their tires or make U-turns without popping a wheelie. To say the whole thing is overheated is not overstating it.

A&E was very smart to hire Swayze. I can’t imagine anyone else making this silliness seem so good.