"Leverage": "Hustle" with a twist

I'm not sure what Hollywood does better these days: taking British actors and inserting them into American TV shows or taking British TV shows and inserting American actors into them.

In the latter case we have "Life on Mars" and "Eleventh Hour" in addition to "The Office." And now "Leverage," debuting at 9 CT tonight on TNT after another one of those too-cute-by-half "Librarian" movies.

At first, "Leverage" appears to be a straight-up adaptation of the sophisticated BBC series "Hustle," which starred Robert Vaughn as a con artist who leads a team of younger cons on major-league fleecing operations.

"Hustle" was seen here on AMC, before executives there decided to stop renting other countries' hits and develop their own. But when the American networks tried the concept, not once but three times, it failed to click with viewers. (What are "Thief," "Heist" and "Smith," Alex?)

So "Leverage" takes "Hustle" and adds the twist.

Remember, this is TNT, where middle-aged do-gooders with personal problems reign supreme. Someone's got to wear the white hat on this show. That person is Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton), an insurance investigator who decides to cross over to the dark side and team up with a band of attractive, high-end grifters to help pick the pocket of large, evil corporations, such as the insurance company that let Nate's little boy die of leukemia instead of allowing the experimental therapy his father demanded.

"Corporations like that, they have all the money and they have all the power," Nate explains to a pair of potential clients in tonight's episode. "What we can offer you is ... leverage."

The secret to the show's success is not any of the overly familiar parts, but the nutty way "Leverage" throws them together. Also, Hutton is a great actor who generates plenty of crackle between Nate and his fellow fleecers: Parker (Beth Riesgraf), an emotionally damaged escape artist not unlike the Sarah Walker character on "Chuck"; Sophie (Gina Bellman), a woman of 100 voices and two piercing brown eyes; Eliot (Christian Kane), who looks like Kato Kaelin and punches like Steven Seagal; and Alec (Aldis Hodge), the show's token nerd.

So if you like "Chuck," "Hustle," "Burn Notice" or the new "Robin Hood" or any of the other shows "Leverage" reminds you of, chances are you'll also like "Leverage."

A second episode airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday on TNT, which will be the show's regular time slot.