Cracking crime caper feels like the Dukes of Hazzard directed by Quentin Tarantino
Duster ★★★★
If you haven’t already clocked what Duster is, the opening credits eight minutes into the first episode make it absolutely clear: an exercise in nostalgia, underscored by a large dollop of fun.
The stop-motion title sequence uses toy cars to enact a chase through the desert, includes a Hot Wheels loop-the-loop shot, and will evolve over the course of the season’s eight episodes to include numerous plot-related Easter eggs. It is, in other words, a pretty decent rendering of the entire show in miniature.
Josh Holloway and the car that gives Duster its name. Credit: Max
The Duster of the title is a hotted-up Plymouth Valiant, a muscle car that was produced in two-door coupe form between 1970 and 1976 (it was related to, but distinct from, Chrysler Australia’s Charger). Cherry red with a black bonnet and twin air scoop, the particular vehicle in this series from J. J. Abrams (Lost) and LaToya Morgan belongs to Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway), the driver for a crime syndicate in Phoenix, Arizona, headed by Ezra Saxton (Keith David).
Jim’s brother used to work for Saxton too, but was killed when his van blew up, ostensibly as a result of a gas leak. But fledgling FBI agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson) is convinced it was a hit job, ordered by Saxton, who just happens to be the man she holds responsible for her father’s murder. She’s determined to take Saxton down – and reckons Ellis is the man to help her do it.
Rachel Hilson as FBI agent Nina Hayes.Credit: Max
Set in 1972, Duster is full of cultural signposts from the era. Some, like Jim repeatedly waking up next to unknown and unnamed naked women, are gentle gags about the mores of the time, and the way they were represented in popular culture back then (think Burt Reynolds movies).
Others, like the unfolding Watergate scandal, appear to be mere placemarkers until they begin to feed into the increasingly conspiratorial plot. Richard Nixon even makes a cameo, in what is presumably a very clever use of CGI or AI.
Not everything in Duster works, but at its best it’s a little like watching The Dukes of Hazzard directed by Quentin Tarantino. It looks a lot like 1970s TV – even down to some choppy editing (in the first episode, especially) – only a version of it made with the muscularity of modern times. There are echoes of Jackie Brown and BlackKklansman too.
