Heist

Leverage: Redemption – The Rollin’ on the River Job

  • Title: Leverage: Redemption – The Rollin’ on the River Job
  • IMDb: link

Leverage: Redemption - The Rollin' on the River Job TV review

While she proved helpful in the previous episode, “The Rollin’ on the River Job” works as Hardison‘s (Aldis Hodge) foster sister Breanna Casey’s (Aleyse Shannon) first job with the team as their new hacker. She quickly discovers filling her brother’s shoes is easier said than done (especially given the team’s unreasonable expectations and demands). The team targets a greedy riverboat owner (Piter Marek) forcing out locals in New Orleans to build for the expansion of his new casino. Targeting both the man’s greed and competitive nature by creating the illusion of another potential casino headed into area, the team also works in several unknown extras (obviously part of the larger Leverage team developed over the years, none of whom get introduced here) to rig the games in his casino making it unable for him to pay-out in front of a representative (Bernard Hocke) from the gaming commission. It’s a solid con with some nice twists and even includes an old-school safe-cracking scene.

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Leverage: Redemption – The Panamanian Monkey Job

  • Title: Leverage: Redemption – The Panamanian Monkey Job
  • IMDb: link

Leverage: Redemption - The Panamanian Monkey Job television review

The team follows Fletcher Maxwell (Reed Diamond) to Panama in the second episode to stop their mark from accessing family funds kept in a private bank catering to unscrupulous clients. Since the bad guy remains the same, “The Panamanian Monkey Job” doesn’t require as much time in the way of setup. Instead that time is used to introduce the show’s other new cast member in Hardison‘s (Aldis Hodge) foster sister Breanna Casey (Aleyse Shannon) who will take over for Hardison as the team’s new hacker with Hodge’s exit due to other contractual responsibilities. The episode offers up the idea that the work Hardison does outside the team is more needed than being present on their individual jobs while leaving Breanna in the hands of Parker (Beth Riesgraf).

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Leverage: Redemption – The Too Many Rembrandts Job

  • Title: Leverage: Redemption – The Too Many Rembrandts Job
  • IMDb: link

Leverage: Redemption - The Too Many Rembrandts Job TV review

It’s been more than eight years since the final episode of Leverage aired. The core cast, last seen in “The Long Good-bye Job,” all return for the new series with one notable exception. The choice to move forward without Timothy Hutton, whose character acted as a central spoke all the other parts of the show played off of, leaves a large hole at the center of the new series which Leverage: Redemption honors in its first episode. “The Too Many Rembrandts Job” opens with Sophie (Gina Bellman) long out of the game still mourning the loss of Nate who died one year earlier. Hoping to raise their friends spirits, Parker (Beth Riesgraf), Eliot (Christian Kane), and Hardison (Aldis Hodge) attempt to lure Sophie into a small museum theft. At first uninterested, Sophie notices a man in need of help leading to the band coming back together for “one job.”

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Black Cat #7

Black Cat #7 comic reviewBlack Cat #7 wraps up some long-running storylines concerning Black Cat‘s heist over the past couple of years and her rivalry with Odessa Drake and the Thieves Guild. Betrayed by the Black Fox, the Black Cat goes to extraordinary lengths to break her mentor’s deal with Guilded Saint.

While Felicia manages to leverage things enough to free Manhattan from the evil deity’s grasp, her plan isn’t altogether as satisfying as I hoped. There’s certainly emotion here, and the framing of events to allow the Black Cat to lay out her recent actions to the Fox before the big reveal plays well. However, in a storyline that saw the character rip of the biggest names of the Marvel Universe and get immortality, everything returning to the status quo feels a bit underwhelming.

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Money Plane

  • Title: Money Plane
  • IMDb: link

“You want to bet on a dude fucking an alligator? Money Plane!”

Money Plane movie reviewMoney Plane is your typical B-movie action flick about thieves forced to take an impossible job. After the movie’s opening heist goes bad, their backer (Kelsey Grammer) pushes the group into robbing a casino plane full of criminals wagering on anything dumb and/or repulsive. Led by Adam “Edge” Copeland, the team consists of Katrina Norman, Patrick Lamont Jr., and Andrew Lawrence with Thomas Jane as back-up. The modest budget and odd plot twists (some of which make absolutely no sense) are, I guess, to be expected from a movie called Money Plane.

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