Lucky, on Apple TV+

In The Flim-Flam Man, George C. Scott famously says: “you can’t cheat an honest man.” However, Lucky Armstrong’s dad was scummy enough to cheat a few relatively decent folks during the course of his checkered career. Priscilla Matheson was not one of them, nor was her boss, Whittaker. John Armstrong stole $9.9 million from them. Lucky was supposed make a clean getaway with the money, but once again someone steals those ill-gotten gains, leaving her broke, with some very angry gangsters on her trail in creator Jonathan Tropper’s seven-episode Lucky, which is now streaming on Apple TV+.

For Lucky, the betrayal was especially painful, because it was her husband Cary who double-crossed her. She never thought he could be capable of such duplicity, even though he is Matheson’s son. Matheson managed a wholesale gas re-sale scheme that Tropper and his co-writers never really explain, on behalf of Whittaker, the sleazy, psychotic kingpin, with whom she had a brief fling. It is hard to imagine them together now, because Whittaker clearly terrifies her—and Matheson is no shrinking violet.

So, it is a small world, which is bad for Lucky. She must track down Cary and the money, while evading both Matheson’s henchman, Harris Dutch, and his goons, as well as FBI Special Agent Billie Rand. Her father won’t be much help from prison, but his words and lessons in flim-flammery will guide her and haunt her.

Tropper’s plot points, adapted from Marissa Stapley’s novel, could have been lifted from a very average VOD movie. However, Lucky the series still works pretty well thanks to Anya Taylor-Joy and Timothy Olyphant, who are both highly charismatic as Lucky and John Armstrong. Taylor-Joy truly carries the show, quietly but forcefully expressing Lucky’s desperation and burning resentment. Olyphant brims with picaresque charm, but he also shows flashes of the deadbeat dad’s ruthlessness.

Likewise, Clifton Collins, Jr. plays Dutch with dark, twisted, down-home charm. Of course, the great character thesp William Fichtner also radiates malevolent sliminess as Whittaker Admittedly, Annette Benning gets in on the fun, serving up Matheson’s caustic dialogue with relish. However, she never projects convincingly sinister presence as Matheson. She seems more like the nasty junior high teacher students try to avoid.

Similarly, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor looks like a more likely candidate for cardiac arrent than conducting a criminal arrest as Agent Rand. However, Mo McRae has a nice humanizing scene as her long-suffering military veteran partner, Special Agent Eli Gates.

Frankly, seven episodes really stretches this yarn of dishonor among thieves. Yet, the colorful performances mostly compensate for the conspicuous padding. Frankly, Taylor-Joy, Olyphant, Collins, Fichtner, and even Benning clearly understand what hardboiled noir requires and deliver accordingly. Recommended for fans of Elmore Leonard-esque capers, Lucky is now streaming on Apple TV+.