Sky Atlantic - Luck

A couple of years ago I was unfortunate enough to watch John From Cincinnati, I was drawn in by the fact it was co created by David Milch, I'd loved Deadwood so I thought, let's give it a go. In case you are unfamiliar with it and, let's face it, even those who watched John From Cincinnati are unfamiliar with it. It centred around a child like man who wanders into a surfing community and moves amongst the disparate bunch of characters, spouting his infantile wisdom. But even a strong cast, including Rebecca De Mornay, Bruce Greenwood and Ed O'Neill, couldn't hide the face that John From Cincinnati was tosh. In fact it was so packed with mystical, quasi religious codswallop that it made Lost look like The Wire. Suffice to say none of us fell off our sofas in shock when the show was cancelled after one season.

So what has brought back all those unpleasant John From Cincinnati memories? Well it is David Milch's latest creation, on Sky Atlantic, Luck. I was looking forward to this, it boasts another strong cast Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Denis Farina, and it seemed a lot of money had been thrown at it. But ten minutes in, I realised this was, more or less, John From Cincinnati, without John From Cincinnati. It was the same show, but with a race track setting instead of a surfing community. David Milch must have thought, if at first you don't succeed and nobody liked it, rejig it and bung in Dustin Hoffman. We even have similar characters, a struggling bunch of  losers holed up in a motel, a middle aged man who talks to animals, the only thing we don't have is John wandering amongst them babbling gibberish.

I'm hoping Luck doesn't go even further down the John From Cincinnati path and have mystical events, like levitation. Yes, there was a lot of levitation in that show, don't ask me why. No one wants to see Nick Nolte levitate, well perhaps we do. I'm hoping, as the season progresses, that Ace, the Dustin Hoffman character, guides us closer to Casino than magical realism. But I'm turning off the second Ace floats and starts bringing people back from the dead.

 

Over