Leverage – Season One (2008/Paramount DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Episodes: D

 

 

Having made a few box office duds (Eight-Legged Freaks, Flyboys), one-time blockbuster film Producer Dean Devlin (ID4, The Patriot) tries TV out again and brings us the heist action comedy Leverage with Timothy Hutton as the Saint-like head of a robbery team that lacks the wit of Topkapi, The Saint or any other films or TV shows in the genre this series is attempting.  Of course, Hutton is a selling point, but sadly, the show never works, even when Devlin and Jonathan Frakes direct the shows.

 

The problem is that this is boring and too self-impressed with itself.  It is too lite and so co-dependent on connecting with its audience in a hip way that the teleplays tend to be muddled and flat.  All 13 hour-long shows are included on 4 DVDs and as much I hoped the series would pick up, it stayed in its same tired mode throughout.  Maybe it is trying to be the U.S. answer to Hu$tle, but that show has far more energy.  Only see if you are really, really interested.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image looks soft and shot on HD, so we get motion blur, more phony colorlessness and tired shaky camerawork that further makes this generic.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is the default highlight of the set with some lively surrounds at times and money in the recording.  Extras include deleted scenes that make no difference and five making-of featurettes.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo