Rake (2014)

“House” comparisons will surely abound, but Rake is easily one of the more confident network dramas to come our way of late.

That nonjudgmental, easygoing charm is precisely why the people in Key's life put up with him, and why viewers will be drawn to him. Rake may be the story of yet another anti-hero, but it's difficult to remember one this likable.

The writing is smart and the episodes well structured, but much of the credit goes to Mr. Kinnear, who maintains a veneer of charm without stinting on his character’s underlay of seedy desperation.

Outside the courtroom is where the drama finds its feet.

The pilot is carried on Kinnear's rascally charm and is heavy on quirk.

The new first episode is good enough to suggest Tolan and creator Peter Duncan will be able to get at least a season out of the world punishing Keegan. There might not be enough here to go beyond that initial episode order, but just watching Kinnear play the sad asshole—wandering around L.A. without a car or getting beaten up due to gambling debts—keeps things rolling smoothly for now.

It’s a fun, entertaining spin on the legal procedural and an ideal showcase for Kinnear’s rakish charm.

The first few episodes of Rake are, if anything, even fluffier than White Collar. All the better for Kinnear to gently cut through the whimsy with his sharp delivery. [27 Jan 2014, p.39]

Kinnear is great in the role because he doesn’t look like a loser--quite the opposite--and that’s important.... Perhaps because this is the pilot, most of the episode is devoted to showing Keegan screwing up and only a few afterthought scenes focus on Torrant’s case. In order to succeed from week to week, the series needs more than just a lot of figurative pratfalls.

An hour feels a little long for the tonally eclectic dramedy, but Kinnear is pitch-perfect, and with sharp stories, Rake can progress. [24 Jan 2014, p.64]

Rake has enough varied story elements to not fall into the procedural courtroom drama. Kinnear is a natural in the starring role, effortlessly making the shambles of his character's life seem not only plausible, but also sympathetic.

The degree to which viewers will enjoy the new Fox series Rake, based on an Australian series of the same name, will depend on how high their threshold is for watching a charismatic, talented person repeatedly sabotage himself while trying the patience of those around him. Going a long way toward making that trope palatable, and quite charming, is Greg Kinnear as lawyer Keegan Deane.

Thanks to Kinnear, most of this works, although there are touches that feel a tad too precious.

Kinnear, as always, is a likable presence, and he and Summers seem like they’ll have good chemistry if the show ever calms down.

The first pilot was already emblematic of the struggle to do cable-style weirdness and moral ambiguity in a broadcast network context; the new pilot sands off several of the edges that survived the first time.... It is, essentially, "House, JD," and Kinnear has the impish charm to play this kind of character.

Kinnear carries himself ably, and his character’s amiable rogue presence wears fairly well for starters. The long haul may be problematic, though.

Kinnear's particularly comfortable, perhaps too comfortable.... Roy could've been a cartoon thug, but instead he's allowed to gratifyingly embody the demons that truly threaten to carry an addict away into a realm of chaos. He gives this fun but smug series a little bite.

It could still be a hit, largely because of Kinnear. But it needs to pick up its game.

The likability of a lying, cheating, essentially egomaniacal criminal defense lawyer is a stretch in the first place. It takes a lot of grinning and tousling from Kinnear to make it work.

There might be a good drama in Rake, but right now the jury is still out.

If you can’t love the rake in Keegan, then you sure can’t love the lawyer in him either (since it’s barely developed in the pilot). That leaves Rake as an overly familiar character study and an under-developed law procedural.

I'm not entirely sure where Tolan, Kinnear and company are going with this, but I'm only interested if they're willing to go all in. Because a toothless rake is of no use at all.

In the early going, Kinnear is simply too stain-proof. His fizzy, boyish air makes Keegan's vices seem merely prankish and easily overlooked.

While tonight’s first episode of Rake (the only one given critics, besides an earlier version of the pilot that was remade since last spring) is--well, rakishly--amusing, it’s not really enough to give a sense of what kind of show this will be, and whether it’s worth sticking with.

Mr. Kinnear certainly has the charm to play this rakish character, and the overstuffed pilot introduces a lot of characters who might help propel the series' stories in the future. But if "House" is the model, Rake is a somewhat stale successor.

Fox originally provided a different pilot for Rake, one that wasn't so lighthearted. (Really.) That episode will air later, after, the network hopes, we've come to love this bad boy despite his foibles.

"He's a lawyer--but with a twist!" is not a formula that the big networks will ever stop trying to perfect. But the execution of that idea isn't quite up to par in the first episode of Rake.

Rake's uneven tone (which makes Ally McBeal seem grounded in reality) left me numb.

Kinnear is a fine and immensely likable actor, and his wry smile and way with a line keep Keegan at least minimally sympathetic. They are not, however, enough to make him either interesting or believable.

[Greg Kinnear's] charming enough and funny enough to make it work. If only the writing can rise to his abilities.

Rake seems to believe he's fascinating, but the evidence does not persuade.