What the hell is this? Are you trying to blackmail me?!
No my friend. When I say ‘Leverage’, I mean the popular US Crime Drama which concerns a high tech band of merry men that like to stick it to âThe Manâ?.
Who are these merry men?
An alcoholic ex-insurance investigator (played by Timothy Hutton, who looks eerily similar to Bill Hicks) acts as the leader, supported by a sultry British actress/conman (Gina Bellman), an ex-army tough guy (Christian Kane), a cat thief (Beth Riesgraf) and a hacker (Aldis Hodge).
Christian Kane? Sounds like a professional wrester.
He isn’t, but he is sufficiently burly.
And how exactly do they âstick itâ??
By various means, mostly involving the many skills of the team, that being, conning them out of money, exposing secrets, or just straight up theft.
Hmm… Sounds morally ambiguous.
Nah, its fine, they only target bad guys on a non-profit basis. They are basically vigilantes, but it’s more abseiling and safe-cracking than knee-cappings and plastic bags suffocations.
Fair enough. But is it any good?
It probably won’t win many Golden Globes, but it’s good fun all the same. The ensemble cast works well together and have conveniently defined roles. Its a welcome change from the deluge of police dramas, and has a variety of action – the first episode of the latest season involves the team scaling a mountain in order to recover a notebook from the corpse of someone who was trying to expose his company’s wrongdoings. They must rack up a fair amount of air miles.
Box-set worthy?
Probably not, although you could find worse things to put on series-link to watch at a later date. Whilst there are recurring secondary characters, there isn’t so much of a plot arc per-say, so you can dip in an out of it pretty easily. Leverage has got four seasons under it’s belt, and has enjoyed steadily increasing ratings, so there is some longevity here.
And the bad bits?
It could get a little formulaic, a flashback to demonstrate a âgotcha!â? towards the end of the episode when you think all is lost is a common occurrence. Its also a bit predictable, which some people may find annoying, if not lazy.
Where can I watch it?
Season Four starts tonight at 10pm on FX, seasons 1-3 are available on DVD.
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