Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a round of applause for Max. I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s been too long since we’ve all gotten to enjoy a crime drama from one of the major streamers that doesn’t take itself too seriously — as opposed to assaulting you with things like relentless trauma, blood splatter, and tortured antiheroes — and now HBO’s streaming platform has just teased a pulpy new thriller soaked in ’70s cool: Duster, starring Lost’s Josh Holloway as a grizzled getaway driver.
Based on the trailer that Max just dropped, which you can check out below, Duster (from J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan) doesn’t just wear its grindhouse influences proudly on its sleeve. It practically bathes in them, coming off like the sort of crime saga that might have rolled out of a dusty film reel found in the back of a vintage muscle car — and, obviously, I mean that as the highest of compliments.
Set in the American Southwest in 1972, Duster follows Holloway’s badass wheelman who gets pulled into a war between a rising crime syndicate and the law. Holloway’s character, who favors the Plymouth Duster, is all grit and gasoline: Part smirking outlaw, part desperate survivor. He’s the guy who hits ‘em fast, hits ‘em hard, and lives to see another day. (His words, not ours.) It all makes for the kind of show that Quentin Tarantino might kick back with — so drenched in retro chaos that you can practically hear the needle drop on a deep cut right before the bullets start flying.
Debuting on May 15, Max explains that the show “explores the life of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate that goes from dangerous to wildly, stupidly dangerous when a tenacious young agent (Rachel Hilson) comes into town hellbent on taking his crime family down.”
Honestly, from what I’ve seen so far, the whole thing feels like Justified meets Reservoir Dogs, with loads of dirt-under-the-fingernails grit and soaked in style. The latter is thanks to everything from the vintage cars to sunbaked motel signs, seedy bars, and gunfights choreographed for pure small screen delight.
Duster is also more than pulp and punch. There’s real character work under the hood — especially in the portrayal of Hilson’s Nina, a tough-as-nails character based partly on the first Black woman to become a special agent in the FBI. The two leads make for a chaotic, combustible pair, and I can already tell it’s going to be too much fun watching them both barrel toward trouble with style, swagger, and just a sliver of hope.
