'Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist' Reviews: Performances from A-List Stars Save this Drama

         On September 5, 2024, Peacock released 'Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist', which has received predominantly positive reviews from critics, currently holding at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the miniseries, "In a city bursting with fight night anticipation, streetwise hustler Gordon "Chicken Man" Williams plants himself at the center of the action. His big ambitions, and even bigger talk, put him on a collision course with ruthless criminals, each consumed by their own insatiable hunger for the spoils of the event. As dawn breaks on a city reeling from the heist, JD Hudson, a pioneering Black detective, is thrust into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse as the body count rises. With time running out, JD and Chicken Man race against the clock to clear Chicken's name and survive the dangerous forces closing in." The ensemble cast includes Kevin Hart, Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle, and Terrence Howard. Read the full review round-up below.

       Julian Lytle of RIOTUS praises the drama, stating, "Ali, Crime, and Ambition: ‘Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist’ Is a Must-Watch Miniseries" Adding, "Cheadle is great here, but after seeing him as an actor for thirty years, he’s always good. He has excellent onscreen scenes with Hart and later Jackson, who some might be used to because of the MCU, but his character is very much just as empathetic as Hart’s Chicken Man, even if you’re on some F*** the Police ethos. Taraji P. Henson plays Vivian Thomas, who is Chicken’s hustle partner and mistress. At the same time, he’s married and has this Black working-class suburban dreamlife of sorts elsewhere; Vivian is very much his real partner in life up until now. Henson plays a character that feels familiar for her, at least for the viewer, and I wish there were a bit more to her overall, but Henson is enjoyable to watch on screen and has a good arc throughout the entirety of the series. She’s great in many of the scenes she’s in with her co-stars, and that’s something you can say with the whole cast."

       Terrell Smith of What To Watch says, "When Peacock announced the cast of Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, it was understandably easy to get excited about the limited series without even knowing its premise. After all, you have four Oscar nominees in Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle and Terrence Howard, and arguably one of the most marketable men in Hollywood, Kevin Hart, leading an A-list cast. Plus, there was the safe assumption that there would be tons of on-screen chemistry given a few of the stars had previously worked together. WTW had it pegged as one of our most anticipated fall TV shows. Yet, with all this star power and assumed chemistry, the performances offered in Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist were disappointingly just solid. To be clear, the performances weren't horrible by any means. However, it just seemed as if the stars could be replaced with other actors and my fascination with the series would relatively remain the same."

Photo by Viktor Hanacek on picjumbo

        Carla Meyer of San Francisco Chronicle notes, "Shaye Ogbonna and its talented directors, including former Vallejo resident Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow”), rarely let the proceedings grow self-indulgent the way those other all-star heist stories featuring Cheadle (the “Ocean’s” movies) often did."

        AV Club's Josh Spiegel writes, "The ingredients that make up the new limited series Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist will be all too familiar to anyone who’s paying attention to this TV moment. The eight-episode series is inspired by a true-crime podcast that itself was an unearthing of a shocking robbery connected to Muhammad Ali’s return to boxing in 1970. It’s available on Peacock, one of a host of streaming services continuing to battle for audience attention. It boasts a recognizable ensemble cast, as well as a well-known director and producer. It starts in medias res to potentially amplify the tension and make the audience wonder how its antihero lead could wind up with a gun in his face. And it is, as is almost a requirement with new shows, at least two or three episodes too long—to the point of raising the question of why the series exists at all. The story it tells is indeed fascinating, but at heart, its intent is to prove that A-list actor and stand-up Kevin Hart has a secret well of dramatic talent. And in that respect, it’s a miss."

'Borderlands' Bombs with the Critics

         On August 9, 2024, Lionsgate released 'Borderlands', which is the highly anticipated film adaption of the video game franchise of the same name. Unfortunately, the wait may have been for naught as the film has received predominantly negative reviews, holding rotten at 7% on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a Critics Consensus that reads, "Glitching out in every department, Borderlands is balderdash." In the film a bounty hunter returning to her home planet for a mission reluctantly creates a team in order to save the universe. The ensemble cast includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, Florian Munteanu, and Edgar Ramírez. But what did the critics say?

        Donald Clarke of Irish Times notes, "Console junkies will find themselves involuntarily hammering an imagined X button in the hope of getting back to the gameplay. No good. You’re stuck with this wacko BS." Adding, "When Blanchett actually says “I’m getting too old for this shit” it doesn’t play like a gag at the expense of all the superannuated action stars who have said it before her. Unfortunately, the longer the thing goes on the less it ceases to be good honest rubbish and the more it expects us to care about the stupid, stupid plot."

        Carla Hay of Culture Mix says, "Borderlands" should be called Bored and Bland to describe this slipshod movie adaptation of the video game. It's just a mishmash of mindless action scenes, annoying characters, and shameless ripoffs of Star Wars and Mad Max movies."

       Tatiana Hullender of Screen Rant was more impressed, stating, "Borderlands rushes through too many plot points for its own good, but it's saved by its likable cast and willingness to lean into video game moments." Continuing, "In a recent interview with Screen Rant, Jamie Lee Curtis explained that Cate Blanchett was the number one reason she agreed to be in Borderlands, and the proof is in the final product. From her opening narration to the final sequence of triumph, Blanchett commands the screen and demands my respect and attention. There have been instances where a respected actor can turn out to be too good for the popcorn movie they're in, accidentally weighing down the work instead of elevating it, but that is far from being the case here."

       Benjamin Lee of Guardian writes, "Blanchett, outfitted in sparkly gear and a swoop of bright red hair, deserves credit for not shrinking from a task so far beneath her." Adding, "With its juvenile humor, fast pace and shaky handle on grownup feelings, Borderlands winds up resembling nothing so much as a children’s film that’s too violent for children to actually watch. It’s not the severity of the violence so much as the aesthetic drabness; strange, really, that gorehound Roth bungles a few horror-tinged sequences into a hail of machine-gun fire. (Blame the PG-13 if you must, but CG blood wouldn’t improve matters.) If the recent Dune movies are self-serious Star Wars, and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon series are bozo-level Dune, then Borderlands is Rebel Moon dumbed further down until it hits a dead end. There can be something freeing about a shameless genre ripoff, whether game-based or not; just look at Resident Evil, Pitch Black or The Fast and the Furious. (Maybe Vin Diesel is the secret sauce.) Borderlands doesn’t seem to quite realize that there’s an art to the steal."

Photo by Felipe Bustillo on Unsplash