Amy's Robot

Terriers, the return of Donal Logue

Donal Logue has a new TV show called "Terriers" on FX. I'm a big Donal Logue fan. He continues to do loads of TV and movies, but somehow his career has never really taken off the way it should have. I know he was the star of "Grounded For Life" a few years ago, a show I watched zero times, but in a lot of the press I've seen for "Terriers", he's still referred to as "Donal Logue, from The Tao of Steve", a movie that came out 10 years ago.

Anyway, everything that's good about this new show is basically because of Donal Logue. The show follows Logue and his friend, a guy from "True Blood", who work as unlicensed private eyes in San Diego. They're both well-meaning schlubby guys trying, without much success, to get their lives together: Logue is an ex-drunk who got kicked off the police force and dumped by his wife, whom he still loves, and his friend is an ex-burglar. They investigate crimes and domestic disputes while the whole world calls them deadbeats. But, of course, they're actually really good in a back-door kind of way, and use their connections to the seamy underbelly to expose the bad guys.

Donal Logue is as haggardly charming as ever, even if he does have more grey in his bead and deep crinkles on his face. The writing is pretty flat: Logue has lines like "You killed my friend. And I'm going to destroy you" that not even he can save. But there's funny stuff, too, like when the two guys are watching at a pretty graphic sex tape recorded on someone's iPhone. "iPorn!," the friend says. "You what?," says Donal Logue.

The pilot episode was directed by Craig Brewer, who also did Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan and is good at capturing the grim reality of being poor, desperate, driving a cruddy car, hanging out with criminals and drug addicts, and getting chained to radiators. There's a big streak of class consciousness running through this show (NY Times says it "hangs rich people out to dry") with the wealthy pillars of society raping the underclass until our heroes take them down.

I'm guessing this show won't be around for more than a few months, but for now it's a good scruffy diversion until Logue's next movie Vengeance. Which stars Danny Trejo, Jason Mewes, and 50 Cent and looks pulpy and great.

One little reminder about the past career of Donal Logue: he starred in and produced another short-lived comedy series called "The Knights of Prosperity" about a bunch of losers and weirdos who decide to rob Mick Jagger. No one watched it, but it was hilarious, and featured the character with the greatest TV name of all time: Rockefeller Butts. You can watch all the episodes on Hulu.

categories: Celebrities, Movies, TV
posted by amy at 5:55 PM | #