Rating: ★★★★½
Sky Atlantic, starts Saturday, 18 February, 9pm
It's HBO, written by Deadwood creator David Milch, directed by Michael Mann and stars Dustin Hoffman. This tale of the racetrack and revenge is as close to a dead cert as you can get.
So, is Luck as good as the formbook suggests? While the opener is sprawling and low on action from Hoffman's story as Ace Bernstein, the mover and shaker just released from prison, it is a great-looking episode full of dodgy characters and rich storylines.
It's also superbly cast with characterful actors rather than the buffed human mannequins that fill shows such as CSI and Desperate Housewives. Hoffman and Dennis Farina as his driver/partner Gus have obviously lived a little, while a quartet of desperate gamblers look the part too, led by oxygen-chugging wheelchair-bound Marcus, played by Kevin Dunn.
Nick Nolte and Michael Gambon
There's a stammering agent nicknamed Porky Pig (Richard Kind) and Nick Nolte's white-whiskered Walter, who has got hold of a horse he thinks will be great.
It also looks terrific, filmed at beautiful Santa Anita Park in California, all palm trees and hazy mountain backdrop, which Michael Mann fills with terrific action, pitching the viewer into the middle of races so that the jockeys' butts are right in our face at times.
We meet Ace as he is being picked up by Gus from three years inside, apparently having the rap for some other people. The thread going through episode one is that Gus has been set up with a horse owner's licence as a front to distance Ace from a prized horse, which is part of some kind of revenge Ace is plotting.
Romance, betrayal and power
But there is much else going on as the starting pistol sets multiple plotlines in motion, involving romance, betrayal and power. The broken-down quartet of gamblers have a huge win, but will there be a fallout? Porky Pig, or Joey Rathburn as the character is really called, seems to suspect that Walter has a secret winner. And jockey Goose is distrusted by Ace's trainer Escalante for having a big mouth.
And this is before menacing Michael Gambon even turns up as an adversary of Ace's in later episodes.
Just as The Wire could take a while before viewers got into its groove, Luck is all about half-baked conversations, snippets of chat that bear fruit later on. Audiences will need to stick with it.
People will say Luck is doing for horse racing what Mad Men did for advertising men blah blah, but what is more interesting is that the racing fraternity has given writer-producer David Milch an edgy world to delve into. And it's one he knows about, having been a horse player and thoroughbred owner.
Another drama as well made as this, in which people's lives turn on the result of a horse race, has to be worth a punt.
Cast: Dustin Hoffman Chester 'Ace' Bernstein, Dennis Farina Gus, Nick Nolte Walter Smith, John Ortiz Turo Escalante, Kevin Dunn Marcus, Richard Kind Joey Rathburn
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