Leverage: Must-See TV at its Finest

By Alexandra Romanov, 5th Jun 2012 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/3iytfu-v/
Posted in Wikinut>Reviews>Film & TV>Crime

What to you have when you mix a former insurance investigator, a thief, a grifter, a hacker and a military retrieval specialist? You have Leverage.

Leverage

The premise is simple enough: Take 5 more or less reformed criminals and let them loose against bad guys. But what you get in the end is a great time and an hour spent with people that, despite their criminal inclinations and past, you would actually like to hang out with in real life. The team is sort of a modern day Robin Hood mentality except that in this case the rich actually deserve it.

Timothy Hutton plays team leader Nathan Ford who is approached by people with no other options for justice. These are people who the justice system fails because they don't have the money to hire the high power attorneys to go after high profile politicians, corporate giants or other basically untouchable members of society. Ford uses his team to scam the untouchable to obtain the necessary justice for the client.

The team that Ford has put together consists of 4 individuals who each have skills that complement the other team members:

Sofie Devereaux, a grifter or confidence woman, played by Gina Bellman, is a former adversary of Ford's from when he was an insurance investigator. Not only is she seen as the joint leader of the team she also acts as Ford's love interest. She and Ford will jointly set up the con and put the other team members into play.

Alec Hardison, played by Aldis Hodge is the team's computer expert or hacker. He is responsible for disabling security systems, cloning phones, fabricating security badges or anything else technologically related. He has a mortal fear of heights but often scales them to assist team members.

Christian Kane takes on the role of Eliot Spencer, a former military retrieval specialist. He's the muscle of the group being highly skilled in various forms of martial arts as well as weaponry. He frequently cooks for the rest of the team and derides them on their poor dietary choices.

Beth Reisgraf plays the thief, Parker. Her specialty is getting into and out of impenetrable locations. Parker, owing mainly to a difficult childhood, has poor social skills and has trouble opening up to and bonding with people. Sophie has made great strides in improving these issues in Parker and Parker has come to view both Sophie and Nate as parental figures. She has great affection for Hardison which he obviously returns.

The new season starts in July and if you haven't already seen the show you should check it out. It's a great deal of fun and an enjoyable way to spent an hour.

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Meet the author

Alexandra Romanov
Alexandra Romanov is a writer in southern Illinois. Her articles appear online and in print media, including "Spirit Seeker" magazine and "USA Today."