Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

WHITE COLLAR


WHITE COLLAR (2009 TV series). Created by Jeff Eastin.

FBI agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) manages to track down an elusive thief Matthew Bomer (Neal Caffrey) and puts him in jail, whereupon he is given a special deal: work with Burke to find and entrap other crooks and he can have limited freedom. In the meantime, Bomer is desperate to locate his lost girlfriend. This is an interesting idea for a television series, it's well-acted (DeKay and Caffrey have a good rapport), but somehow each episode becomes just a little plodding and you lose interest long before the conclusion. Right now the series gets by on the charisma of its lead actors, but it needs better scripts. An openly lesbian agent seems to have been written out of the series, and Burke's remarks about her in the first episode were kind of insulting in any case. You need more than a clever idea to make a show really entertaining.

Verdict: Not must-see by any means, but it has its good points, including the actors. **1/2.

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