Thursday, February 20, 2014

Netflix Addiction: Leverage

By Temper

The show stars a hacker, a grifter, a hitter, a thief, and a mastermind. Each of them is the best in their field and prefer to work alone, until a wealthy aerospace executive persuades them to steal aeronautical plans which he alleges have been stolen from him by a competitor. After they succeed in taking back these plans, the team is double crossed and find out that the stolen plans really did belong to the so-called thief. Now set on returning the plans and getting revenge on the man who tricked them, this crew sets off on using their skills to turn their life of crime into a life of helping the less fortunate fight against those with the resources to make them go away.

Leverage has a very structured story: meet the client, research the villains, find their weakness and decide which con to use against them. Each con uses each of the Leverage team’s special set of talents. Towards the end of the episode, while it seems like the villain has the upper hand, a series of flashbacks clues the audience into how the Leverage team pulled their scheme off. This formula is followed from seasons one to seasons three, and each season has a two part, large scale con designed to take down the major adversary of that particular season. Adversaries include an insurance agent, an international crime financier, and a seemingly untouchable criminal who runs a fake South American country.

The show lasted 5 seasons, and in my opinion was one of the best things produced by the cable channel TNT in recent memory. The acting is great, with cameos that includes Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation), Mark A. Sheppard (Crowley from Supernatural), and Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Firefly). Asides taking down adversaries, the team has their own complications, both personal and emotional, designed to have the audience identify more with each character. Overall, if you loved heists movies like Ocean’s Eleven, you will enjoy Leverage. Now, let's go steal us a jetpack.


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