Luck

Minor? actor Richard Kind (as Joey Rathburn) in shorter scenes with just a few stuttering lines hits massive grand slams, basically stealing the entire series from giants Hoffman and Nolte. Everybody is excellent but Kind wins the 'race' by 20 to 30 links.

Although the first episode of this series was painful to get through, each episode thereafter gets better and better. After an inaudible beginning "Luck" just might careers and an industry.

As a horse lover and long time fan of Nick Nolte, I wanted to like this show but the first episode was loaded with track jargon, slang, broken English, low quality sound, and heavy accents. There also wasn't much seen of Nolte in the first episode. Fortunately I had the first 3 episodes programmed on the DVR so I had a vested interest in at least watching these recorded episodes. By the third episode I enabled closed caption so that I could follow better. I wish I had not deleted the first episode because I would have re-watched it in closed caption. This first episode is chock-full of information and innuendos, probably why it was so difficult to get through.

This is unfortunate because the series gets better with each episode and I'm sure the lack of clarity in the beginning has meant the series has lost viewers.

Viewers should know, however, that Nolte and Dustin Hoffman are not in this series for nothing. Nolte, whose notorious good looks is now replaced with grey hair and lots of character is a nostalgic owner/trainer brokenhearted over the past with a keen sense of a good race horse. Hoffman starts out stiff and almost out of place, but then his character is out of place due to a series of previous events.

Integrity and love is really what this series is about. The four gamblers, you find, after a few episodes, really love each other. The jockeys love to ride, Nolte loves horses, and Hoffman loves his right hand man. What seems evident is that some day soon, all of these characters will come together in an as yet unknown common experience.

The sound quality of this series is perhaps the only flaw and it's a big flaw. This seems to be common in today's movies and series. You understood every word Bogart said in Casablanca. It is called "projection." Old school directors and actors knew about this. I don't know what happened or why contemporary films ignores the need for people to hear and understand what characters are saying. It's almost as if they think this some type of technique but it isn't and is surely the reason, perhaps the only reason that this show may not get the viewers it deserves. Despite this,I rate this series high which says just how good this series could be.

If you love horses, racing, Nolte, Hoffman or Farina, I highly recommend this series, despite the audio issues which I hope, given a second season, they fix. If you love a good race, which there seems to be one in almost every episode, this series is also for you. "Luck," given the chance, may revive the horse racing industry. It reminds you of just why this sport is the "sport of kings." Hope they will fix the audio, first time I can remember sound being such a "handicap."

As someone who has grown up on a Kentucky horse farm and who has been to racetracks all over the world, it was very gratifying to hear that someone with as much talent as David Milch was going to take on the genre in a T V series. It doesn't hurt that he has experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows that racing can offer since he has owned a racing stable for over 20 years. Everyone in the thoroughbred racing and breeding world knew that the stories are out there just waiting to be told. Just look at how successful Dick Francis was with his string of best selling racing related mysteries. The problem has always been, how do the stories get told without being terribly corny, like "Secretariat"? The temptation has always been to "dumb down" the dialogue to appeal to a broader group of non racing savvy viewers. Milch has taken a big chance by just going straight ahead without trying to pander to his audience. In the end, there is a chance that people will be turned off by the backstretch patois that only aficionados can translate. I hope that the intensity of the story line and beauty of the settings will draw viewers in as Milch has so successfully done with shows like "Deadwood" and "NYPD Blue". It's especially gratifying to see Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens and upcoming Canadian jockey Chantal Sutherland get a chance to showcase their acting abilities and if I know Milch's style, Stevens will end up with a very intriguing role, at least based on his character in the first two episodes. LUCK has been picked up for a second season as of today 1/31/12) which can only serve to give the show the chance to succeed that it so richly deserves.

Luck is the kind of grand sociological series that creator David Milch and to a lesser extent HBO as a network are known for. It presents a cross-section of one out-of-the-way spot in the dying world of horse racing. That sense of death and decay pervades the entire narrative, which stars an assortment of broken-down men headed up by Dustin Hoffman and extending to the quartet of hard-luck gamblers that are perhaps the soul of the show. And yet there's a sense of hope that occasionally shines through and makes it all not just bearable but beautiful.

This all makes it sound arty and kind of dull, and indeed the series has a very deliberate pace that might turn some viewers off, although that's an essential part of its style. But even without the overdose of sex and violence you can get from other HBO series, Luck provides some exhilarating sequences, most notably the brilliantly-shot horse races. Add that to great writing and acting and you have a show that satisfies on every level.

Well, up until the end, that is. Luck is doomed to be a one-season wonder, cancelled not because of low ratings but because of a series of horse deaths on set. It still works as a whole, but with only nine episodes, it's hard not to wonder what could have been. Still, what we have is a gem of a series, and well worth checking out for any fan of high-quality drama.

There is an undeniably large amount of jargon used in the pilot episode, however with a little bit of careful listening the meaning of almost all of it can be easily 'sussed' out. The pilot stands out in my opinion for the creative use of camera angles which allow the viewer to immerse into the horse race. The editorial work is also quite slick. The performances of Nick Nolte and Dustin Hoffman are quite good and I am excited to see Patrick J Adams in the coming episode.

I terms of story-telling and plot lines, the last few minutes of the pilot do help clear up some of the prevailing confusion regarding the direction of the story. All in all the pilot is a solid effort and achieves its goal of setting up the stage for a potentially gripping series.