The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys. We provide… Leverage.
And the best pilot and reboot of the year goes to… Chris Downey, John Rogers, Dean Devlin, and Marc Roskin’s triumphant return of most of the Leverage Consulting & Associates team to the screen in the IMDb TV original series Leverage: Redemption. In the intervening 8.5 years a lot has changed. Now the business has expanded into Leverage International. Beth Riesgraf’s Parker leads the way (but she has a psychologist to help now… a child psychologist). Aldis Hodge’s Hardison has even better tech than he had a decade ago. Christian Kane’s hitter supreme Eliot has expanded his business, too. But somehow Timothy Hutton’s mastermind Nathan Ford has died, and Gina Bellman’s Sophie Devereaux–who was about to tie the knot with Ford at the end of the five-season series in December 2012–hasn’t been able to move forward. That’s where the new series, which feels exactly like a new season, picks up.
The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys. We provide… Leverage.
Leverage original series executive producer and director Dean Devlin has credited a loyal fan base to bringing the team at Leverage Consulting & Associates back after its five-season run from 2008 to 2012. The new series–call it a reboot, a continuation, a sequel, or just a new season–filmed as Leverage 2 and Leverage 2.0 and now titled Leverage: Redemption, will catch up with most of the original lead characters eight years after the series finale, “The Long Good-bye Job.” We previewed the new series last year here at borg, as the series tried to get underway in the face of a pandemic. The production made it, creating 13 episodes, and now we have the first trailer for the show.
The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys. We provide… Leverage.
Leverage original series executive producer and director Dean Devlin has credited a loyal fan base to bringing the team at Leverage Consulting & Associates back after its five-season run from 2008 to 2012. The new series–call it a reboot, a continuation, a sequel, or just a new season–filmed as Leverage 2 and Leverage 2.0 and now titled Leverage: Redemption, will catch up with most of the original lead characters eight years after the series finale, “The Long Good-bye Job.” We previewed the new series last year here at borg, as the series tried to get underway in the face of a pandemic. The production made it, creating 13 episodes, and this weekend series co-star (and episode director) Beth Riesgraf confirmed on social media fans will get to see the series in 2021.
The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys. We provide… Leverage.
Some television series work because the cast has a chemistry that drives viewers back for more each week. Even if they have a repeat framework, it doesn’t matter, and even if you swap out a character or two (or more) along the way, it still works. If you watch police procedurals or crime dramas, it’s why you come back for more, whether it’s Law & Order, Castle, or Without a Trace, all the way back to The Equalizer or Dragnet, and even earlier… the list goes on and on.
Still aren’t in the Christmas spirit yet? With no Christmas day episode of Doctor Who this year, Netflix is filling in the gap with an episode of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina called “A Midwinter’s Tale,” another solid episode of the series taking the story forward where the first season left off, and delving into some classic tropes of American and Victorian Christmas lore. It’s all with the twist of the darker, horror-infused world of the show, but as Miranda Otto’s character Aunt Zelda says, “Christmas is the best time for ghost stories.” See A Christmas Carol, as an example.
Plenty of Christmas episodes of past genre television series are available right now, most via services you may already subscribe to, others for a few dollars (and some you may find free to watch on YouTube). How about starting with the unofficial sequel to Die Hard and Die Hard 2 starring Reginald VelJohnson(Ghostbusters, Tron: Uprising) in his third appearance as Sgt. Al Powell? He’s one of several actors guest starring in a trilogy of Christmas episodes of Chuck, available on Amazon Prime. First is “Chuck vs. the Crown Vic,” then VelJohnson and Michael Rooker(Guardians of the Galaxy, The Walking Dead) in “Chuck vs. Santa Claus,” rounded out with Brandon Routh(Superman Returns, Arrow) and Stan Lee in an early cameo as himself in “Chuck vs. the Santa Suit.” But be careful, you may end up getting sucked into the rest of the series, starring Zachary Levi (Shazam!, Psych the Movie, Thor: Ragnarok),Yvonne Strahovski(The Predator, The Handmaid’s Tale), and Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Leverage, Castle).
In the same vein as Sabrina, check out Grimm with Christmas episodes “Twelve Days of Krampus” and “The Grimm Who Stole Christmas,” both available on Amazon Prime. “Twelve Days of Krampus” provides one of the best illustrations of Krampus, the folkloric character who has been a subject of this time of year for more than 2,000 years. Ever get coal in your stocking? Learn more here. And you’ll find some familiarity with the critters in “The Grimm Who Stole Christmas” as the new Sabrina episode. Each of these Grimm episodes is among the best of Christmas episodes, and overall great episodes of the series. And if paranormal shows are your thing, don’t forget the Supernatural episode, “A Very Supernatural Christmas.” Catch it on Netflix. The Winchester Brothers pursue some pagan gods at Christmastime, revisit their own Christmas past, and try to share a Christmas together as only they could.
That brings us to six classic Christmas episodes. How about six more?
It was a bit of an oddity this year to have a choice of watching on television or at the movie theater what might have been a forgotten footnote to the strange 1970s life styles of the rich and famous. In many ways the only real value of the story of the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, grandson to the once richest man in the world, is the almost Aesop’s Fables inspired punchline of the movie title, All the Money in the World. Mark Wahlberg as security man Fletcher Chase gets to deliver the goods to Getty at film’s end: It doesn’t matter how much money the billionaire Getty had, it didn’t bring him happiness. Based on John Pearson’s book, Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty, the film is now streaming on multiple platforms. This year’s television series Trust, featuring Donald Sutherland as the senior Getty, offered up the same story over a much too long 10 episodes. Sutherland’s Getty is shown as far more disturbing than in the movie, and other than providing an example of Sutherland in another creepy role, the show had very little to offer.
All the Money in the World, the film version of the story, features a showcase of acting talent in a script that is almost up to the task. Christopher Plummer is Getty I, the grandfather who in 1973 refused to pay his grandson’s ransom, even after those who kidnapped him cut off and mailed-in the young man’s ear. Plummer stepped in late in production after Kevin Spacey was ousted from the film because of Spacey’s sexual misconduct scandal. The result proves that at any age Plummer can create a compelling character, even if the real man behind the character seems far less interesting than one might think. Wahlberg is playing what has become one of his stock character styles–this is the brash Boston cop in The Departed and the decisive marksman from Shooter. Wahlberg plays the tough guy well here, in a role that echoes private investigator Jay J. Armes’ rescue of Marlon Brando’s kidnapped son just one year before the events in the film. Young actor Charlie Plummer (no relation to Christopher) is Getty’s grandson, an atypical twist on the typical troubled youth character. French actor Romain Duris is compelling as a member of the captor group who helps keep Getty alive during is confinement. Always delivering a strong performance, Oscar winner Timothy Hutton unfortunately is underutilized as Getty’s loyal lawyer Oswald Hinge.
Directed by Ridley Scott, the movie is similar in execution to last year’s Steven Spielberg historical drama The Post. The film has themes in common with Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, but Scott didn’t opt to add any memorable style as Welles did with his classic story of a man acquiring possessions to the exclusion of family or love. It’s not great, but it’s a solid drama. But the biggest success of the film comes through via its lead actress, four-time Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams. Williams portrays the grandson’s mother not as an emotional wreck but a determined mother who works frantically to negotiate her son’s release, with no help from the elder Getty or her disaster of an ex-husband. And she couldn’t justify those Academy nods any better than balancing an affected accent, the billionaire family lifestyle, and that single mom angst as she attempts to reflect a parent handling a tragic event most people will never have to encounter.
The good news? The networks all have released previews of their new Fall TV series. The bad news? Most of the trailers play-out pretty flat–look for more of the same bland, dry, typical attempts at the next best Emmy-winning drama and the same brand of network comedy. We showed you previews for three new series from CBS last week (here) for shows we think might be worth giving a shot: the reboot of Magnum, p.i., the return of Murphy Brown, and the Dick Wolf series FBI with Law & Order’s Jeremy Sisto and the DCU’s Connie Nielsen.
We were looking forward to New Girl’sHannah Simone starring in a reboot of The Greatest American Hero, but ABC rejected the series after the pilot was filmed. Forever and Law & Order’sAlana de la Garza‘s series Chiefs, and Timothy Hutton in Main Justice are still expected from CBS. What We Do in the Shadows is a werewolf-zombie comedy starring Doug Jones coming from FX. HBO is expected to launch a series called Camping with David Tennant, Ione Skye, and Juliette Lewis. And Showtime has City on a Hill with Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Jill Hennessy, Ball Street with Don Cheadle, and Kidding with Jim Carrey, Catherine Keener, and Frank Langella. But we’ve seen no trailers for these series yet.
Putting aside the ongoing series being continued between now and year end, several new series with trailers now released may be of interest based on actors who have previously acted in genre series, so we’re going to run down those that may be worth at least a viewing of the first episode.
Here are the other new series, the genre actors you might want to know about, followed by the trailers for Fall 2018:
When a movie director can re-create the right look and feel of a time and place, the film can take audiences in a darkened theater into the past as well as any time machine. This year the re-creation is July 1973 and the place is Rome. The subject is a celebrity family kidnapping that has faded in the memories of most and unknown to the rest, the kidnapping of oil baron and “The Richest Man in the World” J. Paul Getty’s grandson, and the efforts taken to get him back. All the Money in the World is based on the book Painfully Rich by John Pearson, with a script by David Scarpa (The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)). The real-life account of the kidnapping is the stuff of great drama, full of strange decisions and bizarre actions by all involved. The kidnapping is best known for the ear that was put in the mail–and delayed by a postal strike in Italy–sent by the kidnappers to press the Getty family to pay the ransom. The story has plenty of room to illustrate the bumbling and the Reversal of Fortune-esque actions of the uber-wealthy that occurred along the way.
The film is directed by Ridley Scott, and stars young actor Charlie Plummer (no relation to Christopher Plummer) as J. Paul Getty III. Michelle Williams portrays Gail Harris, mother of the kidnapped Getty. Kevin Spacey looks believable as the aged and eccentric billionaire Getty and Timothy Hutton plays his lawyer. And Mark Wahlberg, the highest paid actor in Hollywood, portrays the preposterously–but actual–named Fletcher Chase, a “tall, craggy-faced American” who was an ex-CIA operative from San Diego sent by the billionaire to assist in the release of his grandson.
The 1970s era (although the early part of the decade instead of the later) and a key role by a single hardened CIA-trained operative echoes Ben Affleck’s 2012 Best Picture Academy Award winner Argo. The 1970s look and feel in All the Money in the World is provided by Oscar-nominated production designer Arthur Max(Gladiator, Blackhawk Down, The Martian, Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus) and set decorators on several productions featuring Italy of the past, Letizia Santucci, Cristina Onori, and Gianpaulo Rifino. The film also features acclaimed genre cinematographer Dariusz Wolski(Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Martian, War Machine, Dark City, Alice in Wonderland,Alien: Covenant, and the 1980s best rock videos from Aerosmith and Van Halen to The Bangles and Suzanne Vega).
Check out this first trailer for All the Money in the World:
Timothy Hutton. Brian Dennehy. Christopher Eccleston. Paul Bettany. Neal McDonough. Tom Hardy. David Thewlis. Tara Fitzgerald. Robert Knepper. Chazz Palminteri.
That’s a pretty impressive roster of actors taking to mobster stories this year, in only two productions. One a television series, the other a big screen release. What draws us to gangster stories anyway? Even before the film classics The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Hollywood was pumping out–and audiences were devouring–movies about gangsters back to black and white pictures starring screen legends like James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. More recent, modern classics like Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco have defined what we all look for in a mob story. Coming 2015 releases continue to look at this popular sub-genre.
First up is Public Morals, an in-your-face, no-holds-barred series showing all the ugliness of a 1960s New York City, and a police division with corrupt a corrupt force led by show creator and star Edward Burns. Public Morals is TNT’s latest effort to produce a show to compete with the sex and violence you’d find on HBO or Showtime.
You’ll find top-notch genre actors Hutton, Dennehy, McDonough, and Knepper on this series.
Next up is a British movie, Legend, which tells the true story of twin brother mobsters Reggie and Ronald Kray, played by The Dark Knight Rises and Mad Max: Fury Road’s Tom Hardy.
One reason you shouldn’t write a “best of the year” list before December 31 is someone might slip in something better in the last few days of the year. Something like the series finale for Leverage.
When Leverage executive producer Dean Devlin was planning this year’s season five finale for the TNT network series Leverage, there was already the possibility the series would not be renewed for a sixth season. Devlin went forward with the series finale concept that he and series creator John Rogers had planned from the first episode. Lucky for fans, because the series did not renew. And instead of a typical season-ending cliffhanger, the story of five loner criminals that formed a team had an honest to goodness finale to tie up every loose end. In fact, of all the series finales this year, including The Closer, Chuck, House, M.D., and In Plain Sight, Devlin & Co. slipped in a finale by year end that was probably the best of all.
