Max’s ’70s Action Homage Duster Isn’t Nearly as Fun as It Should Be

Duster should be a lot of fun. Set in 1972, it stars Josh Holloway as a charming rogue, Keith David as a charismatic crime boss, and Rachel Hilson as a driven young FBI agent focused squarely on taking David down (for personal reasons). Maybe it is fun, if you can turn off the part of your brain that asks questions, and just enjoy the cool cars, clothes, and music. But this is a show that loves its cliches, that deploys the most hackneyed and outdated mental health stereotypes during an early episode, and that’s less interested in recreating the ‘70s than it is in paying tribute to the pop culture of the ‘70s. Worst of all, it occasionally loses confidence in its own characters and tone, and tries way too hard to force the sense of fun it should just naturally possess. It still works in fits and starts, but outside of the pilot, it never maintains that buzz long enough. 

Here’s what Duster stirs into its 1970s cocktail: long shots of muscle cars speeding through the desert like Vanishing Point or Two Lane Blacktop. A soundtrack of classic rock, R&B and country, from the obvious to the fairly obscure (I’m pretty sure Here Are the Sonics was never released on 8-track, but hey, great song). An FBI conspiracy that goes all the way up to Nixon. A pool party at Elvis’s Palm Springs pad. Howard Hughes holed up in his Vegas casino, showing up just long enough to deliver a crucial plot point. An ever-present awareness of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, with Hilson (playing one of the first Black women to work for the Bureau) and her Native American partner (Asivak Koostachin) facing regular disrespect from their white bosses and coworkers. And through it all there’s Holloway, with a sly, good-natured grin and his long hair blowing in the Southwestern breeze.

Again: on the surface, this is all good, and when it works Duster is exactly the kind of fizzy, self-aware, neo-noir action you’d hope it to be. But when its instincts are bad, they’re beyond terrible—like that dreadful mental hospital episode, where a retired agent rants elliptical, abstract nonsense while threatening our hero. Another episode starts with a poorly animated riff on Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons, with Holloway and his Duster taking the place of the bird; it’s not just bad animation, but off-puttingly silly, even for a show in love with early ‘70s action movies. 

Duster makes me think of another neo-noir crime show about a Vietnam vet in 1972, Quarry, which ran for a single season on Cinemax back when they were trying to make prestige originals (and before it dropped the first part of its name and focused on streaming). Quarry lived up to its inspirations enough to feel like a modern version of an old Don Siegel tough guy action flick. Duster is too frothy to feel that much like the real deal, preferring a more Tarantino-esque approach of smart pastiche, but without a consistent level of style or cleverness. It’s closer to the raft of Tarantino-derivative indie crime films that followed in the wake of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction—as disposable a cinematic subgenre as any that has ever existed.