There are more twists- per-episode than you might be able to keep up with.
Abunch of renegades and mavericks, who mostly look like they fell out of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, rob, steal and cheat – but, mind you, only from the bad guys.
Problem is, every one of these mavericks is a loner, plying their specialties that range from high-tech computer fraud to old-fashioned one-on-one grifting to cat burgling to brilliant snooping, all in an effort to find out whose got the money where.
This, then, is “Leverage,” TNT’s hyped new series and more – and, well, less.
The renegade characters are brought together in tomorrow’s premiere by a CEO (Saul Rubinek) whose designs for an aeronautic fleet have been stolen by the competition, and he needs to get them back.
Together, they form a dysfunctional family of functioning thieves.
If you can tell me in two sentences or less how many millions of times we’ve seen this tired scenario played out, you win the grand prize of the right to steal $400,000 worth of (check one) plans, secret government contracts, dead racehorse insurance premiums and/or hundreds of other scenarios.
In this particular retelling of that “Robin Hood” tale, Timothy Hutton plays Nate Foster, an ex-insurance agent who apparently made insurance more exciting than being an elite member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
But Nate quit the insurance game when his company didn’t pay for his late son’s experimental treatments. His grief has overwhelmed him and he’s sinking. Or something.
Down and out in a very Sidney Lumet kind of way, Nate is found in a bar by Victor Dubenich (Rubinek), the CEO of a big airline manufacturing company.
Dubenich is hysterical because the competition stole his designs for a new fleet, and he’s been left with nothing. Knowing that Nate can find a specific snowflake in a blizzard, he convinces him to come out of his depression long enough to steal back the plans.
Dubenich recommends a bunch of cyber-crooks and hands-on thieves to help Nate, including the grifter, Sophie (Gina Bellman); the muscle, Eliot (Christian Kane); the cat burglar and all-around bungee jumper, Parker (Beth Riesgraf); and the computer genius, Alec (Aldis Hodge).
Together they form an unholy alliance of thieves who are out for themselves but end up serving the public good.
There are more twists-per-episode than you (OK, I) might be able to keep up with and some of them are very clever.
This is especially true if you totally suspend disbelief and pretend that it’s entirely possible to get the FBI to do your bidding – while you are grifting the night away.
All in all, even with an accomplished actor like Hutton, there’s nothing special to set “Leverage” apart from other cookie-cutter dramas of this ilk.