Even bad guys have to pick up the kids and take out the garbage.
Such is the life of Bobby Stevens, a criminal mastermind whose crafty skill at breaking and entering has turned him into the go-to guy for hotshots who just have to have that priceless painting hanging in a well-
guarded museum. But once he’s back home, he’s just a middle-aged man with a beautiful wife, a couple of cute kids and a mortgage in the L.A. suburbs.
The premise of “Smith,” premiering at 9 tonight on KCNC-Channel 4, may not be all that original. After all, Andre Braugher played a similar character in last season’s sadly short-lived FX series “Thief,” and “The Sopranos” contrasts Tony’s bullet-ridden business with the vagaries of his family life. But the densely plotted “Smith” has rewards of its own.
Ray Liotta is Stevens, the ringleader of a motley crew of sticky-fingered hotheads who come together every once in a while just to pull off a big job. There’s weapons master Jeff (Simon Baker, “Something New”), transportation chief Joe (Franky G, “Saw II,”), mistress- of-disguise Annie (Amy Smart, “The Butterfly Effect”), and her very English and very reckless sometime romantic partner Tom (Jonny Lee Miller, “Trainspotting”), who’s on parole.
Stevens claims he wants to get out of the business and rededicate himself to his wife (Virginia Madsen), his dull-as-
dirt day job (sales, plastic cups) and his grand piano, on which he likes to play jazz. But his “middleman” – the person who matches the monied client with his special skills – is a well-heeled woman (played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, “House of Sand & Fog,” “24”) who keeps pulling him back in.
Beginning at the start of the heist, working its way back to the planning, and then forward to the aftermath, the pilot of “Smith” is ingeniously complex, at least by general TV standards.
Produced by John Wells – backer of such high-gloss TV projects as “ER” and “Third Watch” – “Smith” has a filmic quality. The finely shaded performance from Liotta helps with that impression.
Yet the elements that make “Smith” so smart and savvy could also keep the drama from attracting a large audience. Some viewers may have trouble rooting for a gang of hoods on a weekly basis.
