David Milch's new series for HBO is, based on cast alone, going to have a lot of problems appealing to the youth demographic. Its leads Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte are seventy-four and seventy, respectively, Richard Kind and Dennis Farina are in their fifties, and later episodes will feature Joan Allen and Michael Gambon, neither exactly spring chickens. Furthermore, the atmosphere of the series, even though, unlike Milch's masterpiece Deadwood, seems to take place in the golden sunshine of California, is so grim and foreboding that everybody, even the jockeys and love interests seem older just by osmosis. But the talent involved with Luck is so good that one finds it hard to turn away, even when, as is the case in the first couple of episodes, what's actually going on seems a little beyond us.
Hoffman plays 'Ace' Bernstein, a gambler-magnate who just finished a three-year stint in prison , and now seems determined to wreak an elaborate scheme of vengeance, though we still don't quite know against who. We know it involves his driver Gus (Farina, for the first time in a decade getting a role worthy of him) as the front by the owner of a racehorse. This racehorse is being managed at a track by a trainer named Escalante (John Ortiz) who seems to be running a scheme of his own. The stable is managed by Walter 'The Old Man' Smith (Nolte) who seems to have a bigger investment in the horse, and seems determined to work out a scheme of his own, involving the death of one of his horse. And then there are the gamblers, a foursome of determined horseplayers, who in the pilot managed to win a $2.7 million jackpot, based on the picks of their savant, Jerry (Jason Gedrick, whose early youth now looks perpetually haggard.) It is worth noting that the money brings little in happiness. Jerry, the savant, seems determined to lose his share of the winning on the poker table every night. Another seems determined to lose his winnings on women but can't get out from under one of his older scams. The most memorable of the bunch is played by Kevin Dunn, wheelchair-bound and gasping from an oxygen mask, warning everyone to be careful with their winning while carrying his share in a laundry bag that never seems to leave his side.
One of the standouts in any Milch drama are the strong and unconventional females, such as Sylvia Costas on NYPD Blue or any of the whores that inhabited the town of Deadwood. One sees potential in Rosie, an exercise rider who wants to ride the Old Man's prize pony, but doesn't want to look like a woman doing it. There's Jo (the never without merit Jill Hennessy) Escalante's veterinarian who seems to know something is amiss just by looking at the horses. The other woman seems to be among the jettison of cons and hangers on, who can not seem to find their way.
Luck is convoluted, of course. The dialogue is profane but lacks the poetry that we got in Deadwood. And we still have little idea what the character's endgame is, if they even have one. It's the kind of series tailor-made to isolate the casual viewer. In essence, though, all of these confusions are the point; it's what the best HBO series tend to do, it's about atmosphere and character even more than it's about story. The question is not whether this story will end before the picture is drawn (Luck was renewed for a second season not long after the Pilot aired), it's whether the pictures that drawn will be worth the effort put in. Deadwood and Hill Street Blues were; John from Cincinnati was not. Will the series live up its name? Don't bet against it.
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