Alex Kane (Philip Winchester, “Strike Back”) is given an offer to work for an organization that can predict crime. Not only can they predict crime, but this organization is used by the world’s richest of the rich to place bets on whether or not these crimes can be stopped. Too crazy to be true? That’s what Alex thinks as the mysterious Mr. Johnson (Wesley Snipes, “The Expendables 3”), a.k.a. the Pit Boss, and his associate Cassandra (Charity Wakefield, “Wolf Hall”), a.k.a. the Dealer offer Alex potential employment. They reveal this information to him in hopes that he will become what they call “the Player,” the man who acts as the player in the game of crime whom the rich make their bets on or against. “The Player” is a television show that’s not concerned with bringing any particularly new ideas to the table, instead preferring to showcase well-executed action over a groundbreaking plot.
Alex serves as a security consultant in Las Vegas. After thwarting an assassination attempt on a sheikh and his family, Alex and his ex-wife Ginny (Daisy Betts, “Chicago Fire”), with whom he has an on and off again relationship, are attacked in her home. The assailants kill Ginny as Alex tries to chase after them, but they escape. Now the police think Alex is the prime suspect. Alex escapes custody and crosses paths with Mr. Johnson and Cassandra, who offer him a chance to find the men who killed his wife and become their Player, which is a lifetime commitment, insinuating this job doesn’t exactly come with a retirement plan. Alex doesn’t agree with their system of business, working for the rich who make bets involving innocent people who could get hurt, but he reluctantly accepts.
It seems that the show will be taking the old-school approach of having a crime of the week that Alex will have to solve. While it seems kind of mundane that Alex is always going to fight some weekly bad guy and win — what else is he gonna do, get killed and the show’s over? — the action scenes are so well done. The show doesn’t have much substance, but it certainly makes up for it with style. Winchester does a fantastic job as an action hero, Wakefield’s character, Cassandra, adds a fun element of cool as Alex’s analyst, and Snipes’ Mr. Johnson brings a certain mystery factor as the pit boss. We have no idea what Johnson’s motives are in hiring Alex, a mystery which will probably be explored more and more throughout the season.
The premise for “The Player” is not the most exciting. Even though there’s a clear conflict of Alex working for people whom he doesn’t trust, this mysterious organization is not fleshed out enough to really capture the audience’s attention. A group of bored rich people who bet on crime does not really sound that exciting, at least not the way they’re explained to us. Even though Alex wants to find the people responsible for taking his wife away from him, there needs to be more to the show’s plot than him working for people who want to gamble on him. Perhaps more will be revealed about this mysterious organization at a later date, but at the moment the concept is a little weak. Provided it’s able to build a stronger story arc and up the ante for character development, the show might develop a stronger hand and become a winner.
