Ever since I first heard about Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, I’ve been excited to see it. First, I love shows about crimes; it’s from growing up watching Police shows and detective shows on reruns on TV. I like the way these shows work, even with how unrealistic they are in which things are solved in forty-four minutes, but it’s always some good TV, at least in a classic sense. The other thing I’m really into is the crime history of the Black community in the US and how it impacts the greater whole of the community. Usually, I like Drug War stories, but stories about Black organized crime are also something that interests me because of how much of what goes on in the “streets” has connections to the civil rights movements and political agendas of Black folks in this country. Fight Night centers on an event around Ali’s return fight in Atlanta after not being allowed to fight for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War. Here, a man named Gordon Williams, known on the streets of Atlanta as – Chicken Man (Kevin Hart) sees this as a way to set him off on a new path to prosperity. Chicken Man connects with his friend Silky (Atkins Estimond) to organize a party for all the big-time Gangsters coming to Atlanta, especially the Black Godfather, Frank Moton (Samuel L. Jackson). Chicken Man wants to create a relationship with him so that he can become his man on the ground and connection to Atlanta to build it from what it was in 1970 into a Black Las Vegas.
Things get complicated when Emerson Dorsey (Sam Adegoke) is hired to plan a heist to rob this party. He contacts his friend and fellow war vet Mack (Sinqua Walls) to pull it off. From there, the show shifts into a heist film as we see the crew put together following Mack and his likable presence. This contrasts Chicken’s, which is sometimes comedic in that he goes around the city trying to get the party done. It has elements in that arc that can remind you of Uptown Saturday Night or Let’s Do It Again, at least aesthetically. The show, created by Shaye Ogbonna and with some of the directing by Craig Brewer, goes very much into feeling and looking like Blaxploitation films of the 70s. Brewer’s direction, especially if you know his work, is part of his directing DNA in many of his significant films like Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and My Name is Dolemite. From the color correction to the use of multiple frames on screen, for me, it really helped to pull into the story’s timeframe. That’s a simplification, but many subtle things are happening on screen, from the music cue to camera zooms and framing, that will make you think of those old classics while watching.
Another throughline in this miniseries is with the character Detective JD Hudson, played by Don Cheadle, who is the only Black Detective on the Atlanta PD. Who struggles with being an outcast and pariah of sorts within the police force for being Black around a lot of racist white police officers and the Black community for being a police officer. In the early parts of the miniseries focus on his mission to protect Muhammad Ali while in the city before the fight and how they clash at first. Dexter Darden plays Ali and does an okay enough job as this iconic figure, and he does well in his scenes with Cheadle. Cheadle is great here, but after seeing him as an actor for thirty years, he’s always good. He has excellent onscreen scenes with Hart and later Jackson, who some might be used to because of the MCU, but his character is very much just as empathetic as Hart’s Chicken Man, even if you’re on some F*** the Police ethos. Taraji P. Henson plays Vivian Thomas, who is Chicken’s hustle partner and mistress. At the same time, he’s married and has this Black working-class suburban dreamlife of sorts elsewhere; Vivian is very much his real partner in life up until now. Henson plays a character that feels familiar for her, at least for the viewer, and I wish there were a bit more to her overall, but Henson is enjoyable to watch on screen and has a good arc throughout the entirety of the series. She’s great in many of the scenes she’s in with her co-stars, and that’s something you can say with the whole cast.
I haven’t talked about Hart much, but I think he does very well here. It’s a role where his comedic talents and everyman persona, along with his ability to talk too much, play well in portraying Chicken Man ( a real person, I should add). Hart has been trying to do more roles against type for the last few years, and seeing him stretch over time has been successful in some projects and not others. Here, he’s great as this ambitious man who quickly got in over his head with people he had no business dealing with. He’s able to act and be funny when need be. His Chicken Man is stressed through seven of the eight episodes of this series. Yet I almost forgot one person – Terrence Howard. He plays Richard Wheeler, aka Cadillac, Moton’s right-hand guy. A role he inherited from his father, this role plays into every single one of Howard’s strengths, especially if you’re a person who’s been watching him since the nineties. With his Farah Fawcett-styled wig on, he doubles down on the pretty muthaf***** you love to hate in stories like this while also having some fantastic one-liners in his scenes.
While watching this, as we see the Moton character talk about his plans for the future of Atlanta written from the view of hindsight of the writers on what Atlanta is now versus the potential of it back then to be the Black Mecca of the US, I wondered with all the talk of prestige television and shows to watch why there isn’t as much talk about this miniseries like we got with something like Shogun or House of the Dragon or even Industry? This show has four actors with multiple Academy Award nominations, with Jackson having one. Most of those shows have actors that don’t have the same level of accolades, and for the most part, this is a show that I only know Black people talking about. That’s fine since that is essentially the audience it’s made for first telling a dramatic version of the story from our modern past. The series is an excellent showcase of talent and a very well-told story. Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist is one of the best Peacock original shows they’ve ever made. It tells a fantastic story that intersects all aspects of Black life in a style that is familiar with an amazing array of talent in front of and behind the camera.
Score: A
