Leverage - Season 2 - DVD

Content: Once Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) was a conscientious insurance investigator who saved his employer millions in insurance payments. But gratitude was not forthcoming. On the contrary, when his son became seriously ill, the insurance company's board of directors refused to pay him for costly treatment. The consequences were dramatic: Nathan's son died, his marriage broke up, and he fell into alcoholism. But just when it seemed that life had brought Nathan to his knees, he has righted himself with an ambitious plan: from now on, he wants to help people who, like him, have been put in trouble by powerful institutions or unscrupulous individuals. At his side act four outstanding specialists, all of whom were once on the wrong side of the law and now want to use their criminal skills for good.

The front company, Leverage Consulting & Associates, includes genius hacker Alec (Aldis Hodge), weapons expert Eliot (Christian Kane), cunning thief and cat burglar Parker (Beth Riesgraf), and actress and con artist Sophie (Gina Bellman). Together, this unlikely team has already tangled with many a nasty journeyman in Season 1. No wonder, really, that their quarters blew up at the end of the season. And the second season also starts explosively. Nathan witnesses a car accident and before he knows it is involved in a fight against the local mafia. But that's just the start of a whole new series of adventures in which the team deals with manipulated martial arts and missing paintings, as well as unscrupulous sensational journalism, fraudulent hedge fund managers and exploitation in the textile industry. As if that weren't enough, Nate's ex-wife is also in danger and Sophie takes some time off, with the attractive Tara (Jeri Ryan) bringing a breath of fresh air to the team. And even though they do so much good, the FBI is hot on the heels of the Leverage team, who are now being hunted by, of all people, Nate's former work colleague and current nemesis Jim Sterling (Mark Sheppard)...

Leverage admittedly makes use of many well-known stylistic devices of the crime genre and in some moments seems a bit old-fashioned in terms of flair even in the best sense of the word, so that one could think it was made in the era of classic series highlights like the A-Team or Trio with Four Fists. Still, the whole thing works very well and doesn't seem dusty or uninspired. The mixture of exciting cases, which are mostly inspired by real events, humor and very own, but in their quirky way extremely sympathetic characters gives the series a high entertainment value, which lasts even in those moments when the stories themselves are rather conventional and a little lacking in surprise.

Neben the sometimes very original ideas with which the team solves its missions, it is of course primarily the actors who make Leverage so worth watching. Timothy Hutton, who won an Oscar more than 30 years ago for his outstanding performance in the drama A Normal Family, finally gets to show off his talents after many small roles in B-movies and TV series and delivers a sometimes amusing, sometimes more profound performance. At his side especially Gina Bellman, known from the wonderful British sitcom Coupling, shines, playing here as well as there a somewhat crazy, but still lovable character. But also Christian Kane (Angel - Hunters of Darkness), Beth Riesgraf and Aldis Hodge fit perfectly into the strong acting team, which becomes perfect for a few episodes in season 2 by the most popular and attractive Borg from the Star Trek universe, Jeri Ryan.

Leverage reinvents the genre of crime series admittedly not. Nor is the idea of crooks morphing into a sort of modern-day Robin Hood and fighting as a team for the poor and downtrodden a first here. But that does not change the fact that the series is entertainingly staged, the scripts have a lot of wit, original ideas and decent tension and that the actors are so good-humored at work that it is almost impossible as a viewer not to be infected by it. Therefore, if you liked the first adventures of Nate and his team, you'll love season 2. If you like rogue comedies and entertaining crime series, but don't know Leverage yet, the DVD box sets offer the perfect opportunity to catch up on what you missed. It's worth it!

Picture + Sound: The technical implementation of the series is on a good TV level. The picture is clean, the sharpness is absolutely satisfactory and the colors are mixed strong. At an expensive cinema production, this can not compete, for a television series, the visual implementation can be seen in the truest sense of the word. The sound is dominated in particular by the dialogues and the music, now and then, however, thanks to gunfire or explosions also a few surround effects come to bear, which provide especially in the Dolby Digital 5.1 track for pleasant dynamics. Good!

Extras: The box has about 50 minutes of additional material in English without subtitles to offer. On Disc 1 is an interesting question and answer session with the makers (approx. 18 min.), which however does not really have the best sound quality to offer and is at times somewhat difficult to understand.

On the second disc the viewer is offered the amusing short film Aldis Hold`s Der Hand Job Schwindel (approx. 5 min.) and Disc 3 introduces musician Andy Lang (approx. 3 min.), who works as a sound mixer for the series and was allowed to contribute a song as a musician for the first episode of the second season.

The remaining extras are gathered on the fourth disc. Here you can still see a look at the special effects (about 7 min.), some funny outtakes (about 9 min.), and a tour of the sets with producer John Rogers (about 3 min.). Good!

Conclusion:The second season of Leverage again offers humorous crime entertainment with likeable quirky characters and sometimes exciting, sometimes funny stories. With the appearance of Jeri Ryan to the middle of the season comes once again some new momentum and fire in the already very entertaining goings-on. How familiar ingredients of the crime genre are presented here refreshing and extremely tasty, makes the series a real recommendation for all friends of entertaining thriller series that have suspense, humor and good actors to offer. The DVD box of the second season can also score with a decent technical implementation and some nice extras. Recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp