Review by C.J. Bunce
With a jam-packed opening episode, the new Thursday night Max series Duster delivers a powerful punch, a promising new hour of TV to look forward to. In fact you might not have seen a pilot this good since we first met Josh Holloway as the suave con artist Sawyer in the opener for J.J. Abrams’ series Lost back in 2004. Abrams and Holloway are together again, this time with a very different series. It’s pulp crime pulling in all the tropes, with less of the dazzle of Kevin Hart’s Fight Night and more of the grit and cool of Max Allan Collins’ Quarry, but full of James Garner’s style of driving in The Rockford Files. And when you watch it you’ll probably agree you have a new favorite TV opening credits sequence. Psych fans in particular will appreciate a bit of a cast reunion, too.
The show stars Holloway as Jim Ellis, a jack-of-all-trades thug for a kingpin named Saxton, who Ellis has been working for since he was 16 (Ellis drives the Plymouth Duster just like your brother or uncle had, referenced in the show’s title). Saxton is played by genre favorite Keith David, who among so many other things Psych fans will know as Guster’s dad. Here he has some kind of unknown past with Ellis’s dad Wade, played by genre fave Corbin Bernsen, who played Shawn’s dad on Psych (you can just envision the prequel spin-off of those two working together in their prime). With his style and swept back hair Holloway is in his element as a driver for bad guys in Phoenix in the Summer of 1972.
Duster co-stars Rachel Hilson (American Horror Story) as rookie FBI agent Nina Hayes, a character sharing similar struggles of being Black in the 1970s that Don Cheadle’s detective wrestled in the 1970s throwback crime show Fight Night–and the struggles every woman still encounters in the workplace to this day. She looks sweet and has a small stature, but like Uhura in Strange New Worlds, she has the smarts and the drive to be the first to tackle something new. Hayes is working with young Native American agent Awan (Asivak Koostachin) on the Saxton case (yep, Ellis’s boss), a case she specifically asks to work for personal reasons–her own little secret. Her boss is played by another Lost alumnus with plenty of nerd cred, Greg Grunberg, and the office assistant is played by familiar Phoenix TV series face, Medium’s Sofia Vassilieva. Filling out the law and order cast is yet another genre fave, Donal Logue, hidden behind some large 1970s glasses as a local bent cop.
The stakes are amped up with every new scene. Spotted by Agent Hayes, Ellis tells his former girlfriend (Camille Guaty) he’s heading south for a few months, and then signs a blood oath deal with the Mexican cartel, just as he gets blackmailed by Agent Hayes to be his informant. The threat? Never getting to see his daughter Luna (Adriana Martinez) in the guise of his niece, ever again.
And that’s just one episode. The worldbuilding is brilliant and precise, and it comes quick so make sure you pay attention. Surprises are at every turn, including inside the story and out. When Ellis uses a lady friend Cass (Tara Holt) to con a target, her boyfriend thinks Ellis is after his woman. Wait, the boyfriend is played by Ghosts star Devan Long with a big Afro, who walks in on Ellis and Cass staging sex photos with the target. The result is as laugh-out-loud funny as the scene of Eddie Murphy filming his movie-within-a-movie in Dolemite is My Name.
Complete with that unmistakable 1970s jazz flute closing the scenes in the background, and well placed songs from The Hollies, Rare Earth, Third Avenue Blues Band, John Lee Hooker, and Elvis Presley–the look, the clothes, the cars, and the script have the authenticity and reverence for the early 1970s that American Graffiti had for the early 1960s. Is this the best throwback thrill ride since The Offer and The Gentlemen?
A brother no longer in the picture, running scams for the local kingpin, a kingpin whose influence may be much bigger than contemplated, the Can’t Miss Diner, stolen bodily organs, a former agent on the Saxton case whose entire family is now “missing”. That and 24 Sloppy Josés and some cinnamon chips–What more could you want? It looks like Josh Holloway’s Jim Ellis is going to give 2025 Mob Land series star Tom Hardy’s similar thug-in-a-fix Harry Da Souza a run for his money in a role you might have seen Matthew McConaughey take on a few years ago.
And what a fantastic opening credits scene that you’ll want to watch over and over, bringing the kid out of anyone:
Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars as the intro? What? But that’s all you’ll want the kiddos to watch, as this is a series for adults only.
If you like 1970s Hard Case Crime novels like Quarry and Lowdown Road, this show is for you. Finally something we want to see, a show capturing the punch of Abrams’ early projects. Catch the first episode of Duster streaming now on Max with new episodes airing Thursdays at 8 p.m. Central.
