Roush Review: Strap in for ‘Duster,’ a Joyride of Hot Wheels and Mayhem
Review
Duster
From its toy car high-speed-chase opening credits to the fast-paced melodrama of its storytelling, Max‘s Duster is pedal-to-the-metal escapism. Though it’s as weightless in impact as a Hot Wheels hot rod, the eight-episode action series is a perfectly enjoyable showcase for Lost alum Josh Holloway‘s effortless swagger and Cheshire cat charisma as carefree mob-family driver Jim Ellis.
This pulp thriller from J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) and showrunner LaToya Morgan often feels like a remnant of the scrappy pre-Max Cinemax brand (think Banshee, Strike Back, and their rowdy ilk) with its improbable twists, elaborate stunts, and garish attitude. Anyone weaned on the ’70s antics of Starsky & Hutch will feel right at home with Ellis, a shaggy neo-Western Casanova who’s “magic on wheels” in his cherry-red 1970 Duster muscle car.
It’s a very different and more dangerous sleight of hand he’ll have to practice when he’s recruited by novice FBI agent Nina Hayes (the knockout Rachel Hilson) to help her take down his crime-boss mentor, Ezra Saxton (a silky Keith David). “Mod Squad incoming,” quips one of Nina’s more toxic colleagues when this pioneering Black woman in a forbiddingly macho milieu arrives in the Phoenix bureau full of pep and ambition.
And purpose. She has a personal stake in her vendetta against Saxton, and when she meets Ellis, she gives him one as well. Her investigation ruffles feathers way above her pay grade, revealing a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Nixon White House. (The convoluted plot involves one of the best “MacGuffins” I’ve seen in a long while, a coveted and mysterious object around which much mayhem occurs, akin to a Maltese Falcon. When its identity is revealed, I laughed out loud.)
The pleasures of Duster include a gallery of scene-stealers, including Donal Logue as a corrupt bible-quoting sheriff, Greg Grunberg (an Abrams regular) as Nina’s dyspeptic boss, Corbin Bernsen as Ellis’s indulgent dad, and NYPD Blue alum Gail O’Grady as his flamboyantly surly ex-showgirl stepmom. Episodes occasionally open mid-mayhem (backtracking later), and in one memorable moment of crisis, Ellis and Nina debate coming out fighting like in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She has to remind him that the duo’s death was implied after the freeze-frame. We trust they’ll be luckier this time.
With a tangy 1970s look and feel, Duster shifts gears confidently between violent cliffhanger crises and knockabout humor. Strap in for the joyride.
Duster, Series Premiere, Thursday, May 15, 9/8c, Max
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