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.
For Henson and Howard's part, at times it felt as if I were watching Empire’s Cookie and Lucious Lyon in a period piece. While Henson and Howard don't play opposite one another in Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, she again plays a woman willing to bend the law for her "man," and he again portrays an associate in organized crime. Perhaps the similarities in the roles are why I didn't feel they stood out in the Peacock show.
With Jackson, he delivers a familiar authoritative presence he has shown a knack for bringing to other roles, a la Snakes on a Plane or Shaft. So he doesn't offer many surprises or nuance (said with the utmost respect for the hardest-working man in Hollywood). And while I appreciate seeing Hart in a role that's not comedic, I'm not convinced he does enough to outshine anyone in the period drama.
If there's one performance that scratches the surface of phenomenal, it comes from Cheadle. His portrayal of a frustrated Black cop on an Atlanta police force laced with racism was rather captivating, especially when paired with the evolution of the character's conflicting opinion on his contribution to the Civil Rights movement.
Eclipsing the acting though was a phenomenal plot. The story follows an Atlantan low-level criminal named Chicken Man (Hart) who sees an opportunity to rise in the underworld ranks when New York boss Frank Moten (Jackson) comes to town, looking to host an afterparty following Muhammad Ali's (Dexter Darden) return fight to boxing.
Unfortunately for Chicken Man, his chances for ascension are dashed when he and Frank become the victims of a legendary robbery. As Chicken Man and Frank try to find out who was behind the robbery, both for different reasons, Detective JD Hudson (Cheadle) works to solve the case to prevent his city from becoming a hotbed of guns and revenge.
The premise proved to be an entertaining one. To top it off, there was a secondary story, as previously mentioned, which followed Detective Hudson as he tried to figure out his place as a cop on a 1970 police force in Georgia. He wanted to change how his colleagues interacted with the Black community, but in the same breath, the Black community didn't see him as the ally on the force he hoped to be.
Helping to fill out the eight-episode limited series is an exploration of Ali's relationship with the South, during a time in his career when he was wildly unpopular for his strong stance against the Vietnam War, a moment that is seldom touched on in pop culture. The fictionalized account keeps you enthralled in the show as the other plotlines gain their legs. So there was never really a time when I was watching that I found myself bored.
It's because of these storylines that Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist is more than just mediocre. While the performances from the actors, by and large, aren't mind-blowing, they do just enough to make the work of series creator/writer/showrunner Shaye Ogbonna come to life.
Episodes of Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist air on Thursdays on Peacock.
