Duster episode 1 review: A slick desert getaway with heart beneath the hood

Duster opens with its premiere episode, dumpster diving towards 1972 Arizona, leaving smoke on the highway. This HBO Max original series is executive produced by J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan. It reminds viewers of a bold, retro crime drama that rivals the darker pulpy crime fiction novels of the 1970s, doused with attitude and characterized by high-octane cinematic violence.

Duster introduces us to Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway), a getaway driver who is rough around the edges and gunky under the nails, alongside a whole desert in his rearview mirror. A recluse steeped in the aesthetics of Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood, Ellis makes his way to trouble with a world-weariness that quiets a cacophony, lying behind heavy, unspoken thoughts. But it’s Agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson) who gives Duster its secret weapon --- and its beating heart.

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The dust kicks up fast in the Arizona heat

From the very start, Duster goes full throttle and hits the open roads of Arizona in 1972. This is an HBO Max original, and with the supervision of J.J. Abrams and Latoya Morgan as Executive Producers, it marks the beginning of an audacious retro crime series that merges prestige television with lowbrow entertainment and has a tone all its own.

The viewers meet Jim Ellis (played by Josh Holloway), an utterly exhausted getaway driver with engine oil on his fingertips and the entire desert valley behind him. He is a smoker and a loner, just like Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood, and can cut through sheer silence like a hot knife. Praise must go to Agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson), who serves as the brain and heart of Duster.

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Josh Holloway is all cool, but Rachel Hilson steals the wheel

Holloway effortlessly steps into character. Whether he is spinning out in his orange Plymouth Duster or yucking it up with low-level hoodlums, his acting is vigorously sophisticated. But episode 1 teases the bounds of this archetype — he is a classical antihero, not yet pushed past the bounds of the genre's predictability.

Here comes Hilson’s Agent Hayes: a youthful black FBI agent contending with a racist and patronizing system while attempting to dismantle an organized crime ring. Hilson's performance is sharp, infused with unrestrained charisma, and refreshingly realistic. Even in her brief appearance in the premiere, she commands attention with sheer intellect. She radiates the calm intensity of a law enforcer who understands the complexity of the institution to which she is loyal. In essence, her introduction feels like a warning. Ellis’s story is not the only one being told here.

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Style over substance? Not quite

Duster is a visual spectacle as well. Steph Green (The Americans, Watchmen) directs the Southwest with a painter’s touch, sweeping visions of open highways with rust-red cliffs, sun-scorched buildings, and vintage neon signs. There’s unmistakable love for the 1970s and its emblems like Easy Rider and Two-Lane Blacktop, but devoid of parody.

The episode’s action is fast-paced, though not overwhelming. A motel shootout or dirt-road car chase serves up tension but not spectacle. If there’s one tiny critique, the show has yet to fully unleash its potential. Some driving sequences, as noted by IndieWire, seem more like references to famed car chase sequences rather than thrilling climaxes. But perhaps this is by choice. Duster doesn’t strive to be Fast & Furious, it aims to be a more self-aware Bullitt.

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A tale of two roads — and one promising partnership

What is the most captivating narrative thread? The eventual encounter of Ellis and Hayes. While ‘Episode 1’ does not have them meet, it is evident that they are on a collision course. Holloway’s outlaw and Hilson’s fed represent opposite sides of the moral freeway, and their convergence holds immense thematic tension: justice versus survival, irrefutably rebellious adherence to law.

Duster, this series is not just cool, as ScreenRant praises. Not once. However, the coolness doesn’t feel shallow. Underneath the story's pristine chrome and desert haze is a narrative about power, race, and reckoning, and it is underpinned by crime noir and road movie classics. And based on the premiere, Duster might be shedding the title of aimless circler and showing it does have a destination in sight.

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Final verdict:

I'll give the first episode a 9/10⭐

The duster roars to life with style and intelligence, striking a power pose accompanied by its bold visual identity. It is a strong debut for Rachel Hilson and keeps the mystique intact.

Episode 1 unfolds without giving everything away. Duster appears to dangle its viewers into the center of America in the 1970s with an innuendo of effortless looseness beneath the surface of everything gleaming and polished.