Cast: Jeremy Piven, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon, Kevin Conolly, Jerry Ferrara, Rhys Corio
The series follows the activities of a fictional up and coming Hollywood superstar Vincent Chase, and his close group of friends whom he considers as family. It is loosely based on Mark Wahlberg and his entourage and the former served as the executive producer for the show which aired on HBO for 8 seasons. It is basically about male friendship set in Hollywood lifestyle where your fortunes can change very quickly.
The idea for the show began when Wahlberg's assistant started filming him and his friend group documentary style. For the TV show they had Vincent and his group as lads who grew up in Queens with them not having a criminal background unlike Wahlberg and his crew. Vincent lives in L.A with his struggling actor brother Johnny 'Drama' Chase, his childhood friend and manager Eric Murphy and Turtle who serves as his driver. Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold is Vincent's foul mouthed agent and is by far the best and the funniest character in the show. Jeremy Piven is having the time of his life with this character and this is the character for which the show will be remembered for. He is as legendary as Malcolm Tucker is in 'The Thick of It'.
Over the course of eight seasons we have Vincent Chase becoming a star with a James Cameroon directed blockbuster superhero film Aquaman, then he becomes almost broke with no new roles when a big budgeted self produced film bombs at box office, makes a comeback with a Martin Scorsese directed Great Gatsby, then again almost self destructs his career with cocaine addiction and finally in season eight everything ends happily. As you can see it charts the career of a stereotyped Hollywood superstar, but in a very funny way. The first four seasons are the funniest among the eight and from the fifth season the series is a bit more on the drama side. The sixth and eighth season are pretty poor with all things going rather well for Vince and we are kind of fed up with all the relationships that are going on.
A film is getting made now with the story starting from six months after where it ended. Not sure about how it is going to be but I really don't think it is such a good idea. Doug Ellin will be directing it.
Rating: 4/5
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