There’s no denying Don Cheadle’s charisma and talent as an actor. He’s born to do what he does. Much like Kenneth Branagh, when he speaks we don’t really want to see or hear anything else. He owns the area around him. We sense an ease in what he’s doing. He’s a chameleon who captures the voice and movements of any character thrown at him. But even Cheadle’s charisma can’t save a slightly typical and slightly partisan show premiering on Showtime tonight.

“House of Lies,” debuting at 10 p.m. EST, follows a team of management consultants led by lethal-in-a-board-room Marty (Don Cheadle). The supporting characters, however, simply fill out stereotypes. The two other men on Marty’s team exist for little more than to give some cheap, sitcom like laughs, and Kristen Bell exists as a foil for Marty. There’s supposed to be a sexual tension or, at least, tension between the two, but the script never sells the chemistry and neither do the two actors (mainly Bell, who still looks like she belongs in high school).

The show begins by thrusting us into the hectic mess that is Marty’s life. We are introduced to his ex-wife, whose management consultant team is number one (Marty’s is number two). We are introduced to Marty’s shrink father, his son who’s going through a very strange gender crisis, and Marty’s clients. Once we enter the business world Marty inhabits, the writing gets wooden and the politics go left… way left. (more…)

Four to seven years ago, our fathers scored and brought forth on this continent, some new homes, conceived in stucco, and dedicated to the proposition that all men can get second mortgages.

Now we are engaged in a great economic crisis, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated to overspending -putting in built-in pools – blowing a wad in Vegas- buying way too much crap on eBay, then stepping up to a “C” class –  can long endure. (more…)