TV: Leverage 4x09 'The Cross My Heart Job'

The opening to this episode was a bit different than other episode which is a good thing. Instead of seeing how the client gets in trouble first thing, you see the team coming back from their recent job. While coming through the lobby of the airport, Nate Ford scans the crowd and sees a con in progress. In the process, he sees a woman looking a bit out of a place who because the new client. She is a nurse, transporting a heart to a child in the Cincinnati hospital. The team finds out that someone took Linda’s daughter in order to force her to give them the heart.

The team finds themselves with 108 minutes to rescue the daughter, the heart, and get it to the hospital before the boy dies all without their standard equipment. With all these handicaps, things also start to get a bit personal for Nate when he remembers his son in the hospital. They find the daughter in the local airport restaurant and quickly set up their base there. Eliot and Parker steal a few pieces of equipment, despite the area probably being surveillance and there were too many people around. While Sophie makes a call to get the heart transplant registry sent to their email. Hardison finally gets a computer, an early to mid 90’s one, in order to slowly (I mean slowly for his speed) download the list and filter out the genetic matches for the heart. Nate flags the name Dean Chesney, a CEO of defense contracts who is dying.

So they steal the airport!

They got through a series of mini-cons in order to get the different access cards to the different levels. They find out that the thieves are not in their private hanger, but are boarding a public plane. In order to get them off the plane, Nate and Sophie call in a tornado warning forcing everyone to evacuate the airport and any planes that have been boarded. As the thieves get off the flight, Parker steals their bag and leads them on a chase to Eliot, who beats down the thugs. While this happens, a transatlantic flight comes in and Hardison needs to help it land. Not knowing what to do, he pulls up Microsoft Flight Simulator X on the other computer and uses that to navigate the flight down.

Everything comes to a close when the thief finally gets caught up with Parker after she runs into a cart of suitcases and takes the cooler away. But this is Leverage and Parker is a professional. She pulled the old switch-roo with the coolers! Nate has the heart and everyone rushes to the hospital just in time to the save the young boy. It’s later that Nate receives a call from Chesney and they have a heart to heart about what would happen if he tried to steal another heart for himself.

All in all I liked this episode. What really got me were Nate personal feelings getting in the way of his mastermind plans. His memories of his son kept coming back to him throughout this episode. Eliot had a bit more play than usual because he was explaining about the thugs and how the CEO was using local thugs and not professionals. Hardison got to be a woman who had a sex-change, which made for a very comedic scene while Sophie and Parker got to play off the guy’s cues. Lastly, I immensely enjoyed how Nate explained how he was keeping tabs on this guy, which makes you wonder who else has Nate been keeping tabs on?

5/5

Movie: Burlesque (2010)

Two singing sensations come together in this take of a neo-burlesque nightclub. Christina Aguilera stars as Ali, a small-town girl who escapes her small-town life at a shot for fame in the City of Angels, Los Angeles. When searching for a job, as most of us would after moving to a new town spontaneously, she stumbles across the ‘Burlesque Lounge’. She walks into the building just in time to catch Tess, performed by Cher, suitably performing the number “Welcome to Burlesque”. In typical fashion, Ali decides that she wants to perform in the club. She manages to snag a job under Tess’s nose with help from the bartender Jack (Cam Gigandet) and is able to work in the club secretly learning each of the routines while serving her customers. Jack, the bartender who wears eyeliners and is not gay, allows Ali to stay at his place after hers got broken in to. Again in typical cliché fashion, boy falls in love with girl despite having a fiancée in New York. And despite the heat rising between them there is no sex scene because of the PG-13 rating (what they can curse like hell but can’t see a bit of nudity, you hypocrites!).

As the movie progresses, you learn that Tess’s ex-husband Vince (Peter Gallagher), who co-owns the club, wants to sell it off to Marcus (Eric Dane) who wants to tear the club down and put up condos. Though a background plot, Marcus seems to take a shine to Ali’s character when she finally gets her wish to be in the Burlesque show.

When Ali is given her fame, she finds herself spending more time with Marcus and less time with Jack. At this point it continues in typical love savvy way, and eventually a happy ending is given to them. But not before Ali steps up to Tess and helps her save her club.

In my opinion, I enjoyed the musical numbers, everything after that was pretty much forgetful. The characters weren’t memorable except for the two leading ladies, and even that was only because they are the main singers in the movie. I did enjoy the witty banter you got from Stanley Tucci’s character who is the stage manager for the club and the minor funny performance from Alan Cummings, but the rest was lacking depth. It is a good movie to watch ON DEMAND if you have nothing better to do, or you are interesting in seeing how remarkable Christina acts for her first time.

2/5