Wild Cards

I came upon this movie after seeing an edit about the leads and the plot from the trailer looked interesting enough, so I gave this a try. CW's not really known for releasing exemplary shows with amazing acting -at least not recently- but I thought that Vanessa Morgan and Giacomo Gianniotti had a cool dynamic going on in this Canadian series. Their characters aren't completely unique in terms of personality and personal trauma, but all of the detective/crime antics were fun to follow. Although it seems a little low-budget with the sets and acting, the crimes had some great twists and resolutions. The mains, Max and Ellis, did have good teamwork and the chemistry/tension came on naturally and didn't feel forced or awkward. Max As CW shows go, the script was definitely still cheesy and the cast -excluding Max and Ellis- could've been better, but I enjoyed watching it nonetheless and couldn't wait for the finale episode which had its own share of twists and scams. The show left off on a cliffhanger and it's torture now that I have to wait for the next season, but I'm just relieved it was renewed! Based on the first season, I'd rate this a 6.5/10 🖤

I loved the escapist fantasy of buddy cop tv in the early 00s from Castle to Psych to White Collar. No one was as cool as Neil, as well dressed as Neil, as slick as Neil, as well versed in the arts as Neil, or as smooth a con artist as Neil.

Enter Max, basically the secret love child of White Collar's Neil caffrey and his sleek landlady June, with a Robin Hood twist. Max is sleek, well-dressed, and uber confident. She unabashedly uses her criminal connections and upper level friends to benefit both herself and her less fortunate friends.

Vanessa Morgan SPARKLES as Max from her charisma to her walk to her accents. Max is clearly the smartest, hottest, most cunning person in the room and that's okay.

This show features the hottest most established cast with Vanessa Morgan from Riverdale, THE original Daddy Jason Priestley, Jessica Jones' Terry Chen, and Schmigadoon's Karin Konoval. And, yes, Giacomo Gianniotti looks like a young David Gandy. I feel the producers demanded anyone incredibly hot who starred in super trendsetting shows in the past 5 years.

This show is a throwback to old school CW when it represented everything young, hot and sexy with smart, funny scripts and awesome casts to match.

I cannot talk enough about the positives of this pilot episode. CW set a super high bar. I hope it continues to support such a great show with an awesomely diverse cast. I absolutely LOVED The pilot episode. The cast meshed SO WELL. The writing was so smooth. The locations were amazing.

Honestly, it is light-hearted action fun but with that grown n sexy vibe that White collar did so well.

Update: After having watched three more episodes, the budget has drastically reduced since the pilot. It is now less White Collar's sexy adult crime territory and more in Psych's quirky crime solving territory. Although I have no idea why they'd use a high class con artist to solve local murders a la Jessica Fletcher, it is still a ton of fun.

There is no new story here and every episode has been pretty far fetched when it comes to reality. It's like a fake wanna be white collar with both the cop and the crook being very attractive to look at. Giacomo was a better actor in Greys Anatomy but at least this is his shot and the show hasn't been cancelled yet.... Oh but it's coming. The actress who plays Yates is by far my favorite in the show because she's quirky and she brings a little goofiness and fun to it. Chief Li is hot, 90210s Jason Priestley plays Max's dad and to me.... They're not far enough in age physically speaking. I didn't look to see how old Max actually is. Either way, the show isn't terrible, Marc (the cat) is adorable, everyone is hot looking and it probably won't get another season so watch it now.

It's pretty much Hudson and Rex, swap out Rex for Max. Instead of a police dog, an attractive troublemaking potential love interest. A Murtaugh/ Riggs type buddy cop show with a fish out of water twist. She's an experienced con-artist, who got in hot water with the police... major crimes... and the police are letting her work off her jail sentence by solving crimes. On a trial basis. He's on thin ice with his job/ superiors also, could get back in good grace by solving crimes with his wisecracking criminal partner. It's not even vaguely realistic, it's totally over the top... imagine Hannah Montana solving crimes with Thomas Magnum. In Canada. Harmless/ mindless fun.

Wild Cards appealed to me because I was already a fan of cop procedurals. The show reminds me of Castle, White Collar, and a bit of Leverage. It has the "will they won't they" aspect from Castle and the "can the criminal really be trusted" theme from White Collar.

There was one episode so far where there was a flashback of how the con was really orchestrated, something Leverage was known for. There was also one time Max had to climb through an air vent which reminded me of Parker from Leverage. While one can argue this show isn't doing anything special and just recycling previous shows of the genre, I still recommend it because of the quality of the writing. At first I thought Ellis's character was going to be very one-dimensional because the backstory behind his character was eerily similar to Beckett from Castle. Also the acting from Gianniotti felt a bit stiff but the details of his backstory were revealed quickly and he becomes a very relatable character who doesn't fall into the stereotype I thought he was going to be. The amount of banter between Max and Ellis every episode gives the show a very light-hearted tone. If you are looking for a dark and serious show, this isn't for you.

I think the show makes use of its side characters well. Max's dad George has a significant presence in the show and I think he's going to be a fan favourite. Ricky the butler is the smart guy who is always available and is great at computers. Simmons and Yates haven't had much development so far but they've been slowly becoming less adversarial to our main characters. J. J., an unassuming minor character, was surprisingly later featured in episode 7 and that episode has been one of my favourites so far.

The CBC isn't exactly known for producing great shows but this one is definitely an exception. The budget seems to be significantly higher than the early seasons of Hudson and Rex (comparison only because they're both Canadian cop shows from this era). The set designs, scenes and editing look modern and polished and it didn't look like they had to cut any corners which is different than a lot of Canadian shows I've seen. Looking forward to future seasons!