'Duster' is a Muscle -Car -Criminal Police Drama with an identity crisis

On paper, HBO's new muscle car crime drama Dusty towel Has all of a great new TV series. Cool cars, great 70s fashion, combat scenes and a killer soundtrack. The only thing missing so far is a decent script.

The series played in Phoenix, Arizona in 1972, and follows the Getaway driver Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway) and the FBI rookie Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson) when they made their way to remove Ezra Saxton (Keith David).

The really frustrating one Dusty towel is that it gets so close and still fails with almost every screeching turn. The show never seems to be quite sure or what it tries to be. Is it a Hammy homage to the Muscle Car Capers of the time or a serious crime drama about characters and their families and tragic past?

Are you trying to be the next? Smokey and the bandits – Or a lecture on racism in the 1970s federal investigation? Is Jim Ellis a live schnapps, the-Young villain or just a mostly nice guy with a heart made of gold that happens to work for the mob? And would a rookie -fbi agent with the type of shenanigans and insubordination agent hayes pull from the first day or all treat them poorly because she is a black woman?

Is this a show that we should take seriously (as serious how she apparently takes itself) or just as escapists should be fun?

Tonal, Dusty towel is everywhere on the menu. If it has fun, the series seems. The car hunt are great. There is a dust in a bowling alley that is particularly unforgettable. An attack in the Palm Springs House of Elvis Presley was another highlight, although they could have done so much more. But for each of these great parts of good old -fashioned entertainment, the show manages to confuse itself with an unpleasant sermon, and never fits their cool sense of style with particularly creative filmmaking or unforgettable cinema.

A big problem from the leap is Nina Hayes, which serves as Duster Strong female black woman who is more expensive than a full realized character. Hilson is charming and does a solid job here, but it is poorly served by the script.

Hayes arrives in the FBI Phoenix office to face immediate racism with immediate racism of white male agents. She comes in weapons and shoots her down. None of the actual, far more shameful and subtle racism of a FBI office from the 1970s makes it onto the screen, and we never see that Nina goes beyond the strange speed bumps with him – setbacks that she easily overcomes.

Of course, Nina has no feeling of self-preservation not that she needs some. Apparently the really terrible racism of the 1970s was only stormy. Nina is just cool enough and just hard enough and only rapid enough that her critics, no matter how much they try, cannot let anything stick.

If the show actually knew what it was trying to be, it might not matter. Have a Bozo FBI racist white guy and a super cool black agent and play it to laugh. Choose everything up. But it looks like the point is all of this in showing the audience how difficult it was for a black woman in the 1970s, Dusty towel Does a terrible job. We were told that racism was cartoons bad at the time, but in fact it was super simple, hardly an inconvenience.

Jim is now completely wrong despite a solid performance by Holloway. They had to double the fact that he was a criminal. Make him ruthless, devil -more and more a product of his time. It looks like it is difficult to understand why he is in this life at all. He is an evil boy without a grit. The man of a woman without chauvinism. Provide him a texture, for heaven's sake (and maybe a little scratchy on this cleanly shaved face while you are there). Like Hayes, he is too competent in everything.

Duster could have been one of two different directions. It could have been a dark, serious thriller drama that played with important topics about racism and sexism in the 1970s, or it could have been a crazy Muscle Car Power fantasy that used the 70s as a cool setting. If you settle on a semi -baked version of both, she leaves in an unpleasant, tonal chaotic midfield, which often not misses the brand. As a reader noted, it is like an Elmore Leonard novel without the biting dialogue or tarantino with the sanded edges. Jackie Brown this is not.

After two episodes, I definitely have everything that is said. I like Jim and Nina despite their flat characterization, even if they have leaned too hard in Girlboss Tropes for Nina and played Jim far too straight. Keith David is almost always Saxton, and the side line -up is usually on the point. I agree to the tropey humor and the action is entertaining. Perhaps the most important thing is that despite all the complaints, I look forward to the next episode. Perhaps Dusty towel Find his feet – or the bikes, as it may be – as soon as the season continues.