Product Description
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From Alan Ball, creator/EP of True Blood, this exciting new
Cinemax action drama charts the twists and turns that follow
Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), an ex-convict who improbably becomes
sheriff of a rural, Amish-area town while searching for a woman
he last saw 15 years ago, when he gave himself up to to
let her escape after a jewel heist. Living in Banshee under an
assumed name, Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Milicevic) is now married to
the local DA, has two children (one of whom may be Lucas’), and
is trying desperately to keep a low profile – until Lucas arrives
to shake up her world and rekindle old passions. Complicating
matters is the fact that Banshee is riddled by corruption, with
an Amish overlord, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen), brutally
building a local empire of drugs, gambling and graft. With the
help of a boxer-turned-barkeeper named Sugar Bates (Frankie
Faison), Lucas is able to stay on even footing with Kai and his
thugs, and even manages to bring a measure of tough justice to
Banshee. But eventually, Lucas’ appetite for pulling heists pulls
him and Carrie into a dangerous cauldron of duplicity,
exacerbated when Mr. Rabbit (Ben Cross), the NY mobster they once
ripped off, closes in with vengeance on his mind.
.com
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Cinemax is still on the hunt for a golden show along the lines
of Homeland that will help them catch up to the gold standard of
HBO originals. Enlisting a creative crew headed by Alan Ball, who
helped establish HBO's reputation with Six Feet Under and True
Blood, the cable channel made a good bet on Banshee. The series
has a nice concept of small-town corruption where criminals lurk
in the seemingly bucolic landscape. Its outlaw hero is hiding in
plain , a not-always-sympathetic protagonist who wears the
disguise of a tough-guy sheriff. Fresh out of prison for a crime
we learn about as the episodes progress, Lucas Hood (Antony
Starr) lands in Banshee, Pennsylvania, looking for the loot
that's owed him. He's also back on the radar of a sinister New
York mob boss named Rabbit (Ben Cross, dapper and dangerous), who
was the target of the caper that sent Hood up the river. Banshee
is in Amish country, a detail that will assert itself in lots of
interesting ways over 10 episodes. It's also the kind of place
where a charming, determined criminal beast like Hood can
disappear while plotting his moves and pulling heists. It's no
accident that he ended up in Banshee, though a fortuitous twist
of e allows him to slip in on the lowdown and stick around.
It's pure luck when he interrupts a bar fight that cls the
life of a guy who has also just come to town--to be installed as
the new sheriff. Hood doesn't kill him (though he does kill the
killers), but he assumes his identity since the guy's been hired
unseen by Banshee's young mayor (Daniel Ross Owens). This
nifty setup unfolds in a roadhouse run by Sugar Bates (Frankie
Faison), an ex-boxer turned barkeep who hides Hood's new secret
and helps him along on his duplicitous new life, not least by
conveniently letting him move into the room upstairs. Hood pulls
off his con for the most part, though his new underlings are
puzzled and often put off by his unconventional policing
techniques. Matt Servitto, Demetrius Grosse, and Trieste Kelly
Dunn as Banshee's deputies all take part in keeping the entire
ensemble cast a well-oiled machine. The female lead is Carrie
Hopewell (Ivana Milicevic), who was romantic and criminal
partners with Hood, but got away when he took the fall for them
both after the big score against Rabbit 15 years earlier. Now
enveloped in her new identity as the respectable wife of district
attorney Gordon Hopewell (Rus Blackwell), Carrie feels the pull
of the old days with Hood around--the larceny and the romance
both--she says she doesn't have the loot. Hood is skeptical, and
he also has a fair a of doubt over Carrie and Gordon's
15-year-old daughter (!!), with whom he establishes an unusual
bond. The other big player in Banshee's cracking good
mystery/thriller threads is a local businessman named Kai Proctor
(Ulrich Thomsen), who's not so secretly running an assortment of
illegal enterprises. He's ex-Amish, which makes for some
interesting character depth, as do the complicated relationships
he shares with the mayor, the D.A., and now the new sheriff. A
sadistic and ruthless presence, Proctor smells a rat in Hood
(takes one to know one?), and the plot thickens considerably
across the episodes with all the other players whose
interconnected suspicions bristle and brew. There's a y
portion of bloody violence in action-packed unfolding that wears
its dramatic, big-budget cable credentials proudly. The same goes
for the often gratuitous sex that has become a notable element of
Cinemax-branded product. That's the only thing that makes Banshee
remotely creepy, even though there are plenty of ghosts in the
dark corners and felonious minds of Banshee, PA. --Ted Fry