Billions

It’s Siff and Malin Ackerman, as Axe’s loyal wife (who’s like a sober Michelle Pfeiffer in “Scarface,” all sharp blonde bob and sharper tongue) who simply, by virtue of their talent, keep Billions from devolving into an exercise in white privilege and machismo, something it constantly threatens to do.

The writing is uneven.... But then there are numerous other fine touches.

At its best, Billions gives a game cast plenty of extreme situations to wrap their talents around and reams of tricky dialogue to deliver. And it certainly does have its moments, mainly when it shifts its spotlight to supporting players like Breaking Bad’s David Constabile (as Bobby’s iceberg-cool right-hand man) and Boardwalk Empire’s Glenn Feshler (as a former law professor pulling down a grand an hour working for Axelrod).

It’s a mixed bag, but one that generates real sparks between the rich man and the man tasked with investigating him.

There's nothing subtle about billions, which wallows in kink and filthy language just because it can. [18-31 Jan 2016, p.14]

The series’ greatest pleasure is seeing Lewis and Giamatti spar with each other, but there just aren’t enough of those moments to make Billions a bargain.

It’s the inverse of Adam McKay’s approach to The Big Short’s dense subject matter, in which meeting the players provides a deeper understanding of the game. Backgrounding the market keeps the characters of Billions at arm’s length.

Through six episodes, the plotlines focusing on men putting the squeeze on each other in the name of profit or justice have already blended into a blur of well-acted familiarity; only the scenes with [co-star Maggie] Siff come to life.