It’s said that revenge is a dish best served cold, but in TNT’s Leverage, which premieres this week, it’s served with a wink. The new series starring Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People) is not the best thing to come from the “We Know Drama” network, but it certainly keeps you curious.
Hutton stars as Nathan Ford, an insurance investigator who has recovered millions for his company. His loyalty ends when the insurance company he works for fails to cover claims for his critically ill son. The boy’s death upends his life, and Ford turns to booze to wash away his anguish. We presumably meet him not long after the tragedy, when an aeronautics executive approaches Ford to recover secret plans a rival has stolen from him. Ford takes the job because the executive invokes his dead son and his obvious desire to see justice served. (Um … okay.) Ford then assembles a team of white-collar thieves to steal back the plans. How he knows the team is unclear. Did he meet them when he was an insurance investigator? Presumably so, as they all know Ford, and the novelty of him working on the wrong side of the law appears to be enough for them to sign on to the heist. All loners, the thieves insist it’s a walkaway job: Once it’s over, they will never see one another again. The heist goes as planned, and everyone is pleased to be a little richer. But when a double-cross leaves them empty-handed and left for dead, the team reunites to put things right. Cheating is cheating, no matter which side of the law it happens on. In spite of being loners, the thieves discover that they work well as a team, and thus a vigilante posse is born.
The transformation from being self-centered mercenaries to modern-day Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich and corrupt to give back to the innocent they fleeced, is forced and clings to the very edge of logic. What ultimately makes it tolerable is the engaging ensemble cast. Joining Hutton are Gina Bellman (Coupling), Christian Kane (Into the West), Beth Riesgraf (Alvin and the Chipmunks), and Aldis Hodge (Friday Night Lights). Each has his or her unique talent: Hodge’s Alec Hardison is a computer hacker; Eliot Spencer (Kane) is a “retrieval specialist” who has a miraculous talent for taking down any opponent, no matter how well-armed; Parker (Riesgraf) is a cat burglar with zero fear of heights; and Sophie Devereaux (Bellman) is a grifter able to crash high-end parties and business meetings and sound as if she’s supposed to be there. Trust is a big issue among them, and seeing it develop keeps the viewer’s interest, as do the heist movie elements (goofy costumes, the sly bait-and-switch) and enough high-end gadgetry to make a tech-geek salivate.
All of this takes your mind off the details that sometimes beg too much suspension of disbelief. When Parker forces Hardison to rappel down a high-rise, he does so kicking and screaming, but it’s still done with elegance. When Devereaux poses as a client for the double-crossing aeronautics executive, it strains the imagination when she sets up a meeting between him and her alleged clients (who think she’s working for the double-crossing executive), all by changing a few door signs. If Leverage is trying to be a thriller, it’s undercut by its own funny bone, and if it’s trying to be droll in the same way The Sting or Ocean’s Eleven was, it’s hampered by the comic-book quality of the covert activities (the rappelling, the explosions in which the team walks away unharmed while the bad guys writhe in agony). Yet, it’s all so darn fun that you want to ignore these bothersome moments to see what will happen next.
Future episodes find the thieves hanging out a shingle called Leverage Consulting. They seek redress for an Iraq war veteran injured by a private military contractor, a small church about to be plowed under by an unscrupulous real estate developer, and an adoption agency scamming desperate couples. In a moment in which Main Street appears to be suffering from the sins of Wall Street, the premiere of Leverage may be perfect timing for those hungry to see justice served in one tidy hour.
Leverage premieres Sunday, Dec. 7, at 9pm on TNT.
E-mail Belinda Acosta at tveye@austinchronicle.com.
This article appears in December 5 • 2008.