What do a group of criminals, Muhammed Ali, and the city of Atlanta all have in common? October 26, 1970. When a legal loophole allowed the boxer to return to the ring after refusing military service, the night of his comeback fight became the opportunity of a lifetime for a group of thieves who robbed the night’s festivities.
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Shaye Ogbonna brings this wild confluence of events to life in “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,” a star-studded Peacock adaptation starring Kevin Hart, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, and more. When the fight after party Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams (Hart) leads to armed robbery of high-profile figures from across the nation’s underworld, the victims and police come for him — while Chicken Man himself (apparently he used to hand out chicken sandwiches to attractive women) and detective J.D. Hudson (Cheadle) track down the real perpetrators.
After the first three episodes, which build anticipation for the big night and then lay out the robbery and fight, “Fight Night” is a little too protective of its more potent charms. Dexter Darden’s Muhammed Ali vanishes from the proceedings, initially leaving a gap exactly as glaring as you’d expect for such a larger-than-life figure. It takes a little too long to get to Cheadle and Hart’s inevitable and ultimately rewarding team up, with the middle episodes lagging as they tread water ahead of the final confrontation. A six-episode order instead of eight might have solved most of this, but the three-episode premiere provides momentum out of the gate.
Though Chicken Man and his wayward associates are the initial draw, it’s Cheadle who forms the show’s backbone in a layered portrait of a Black police officer during a turbulent time. TV loves to present a Black detective as a workaround for having to address the complex dynamics of race and policing, but that’s simply not possible with a real figure and a show set in 1970. Hudson is framed as a hero, but a lot of his heroics take place outside of the official job — and it was during his time as an officer that he previously put Gordon in prison, a fact that their partnership doesn’t erase. Tidbits like this point to ongoing failures in a system allegedly meant to protect the people it’s hurting, and other character don’t hesitate to call this out to Hudson’s face. He’s the show’s de facto straight shooter and lawman, but playing a trope can be fun, like when he gets to say stuff like “You got a problem with it, you take it up with Jenkins,” and “Get your ass the hell out of my crime scene!” He crackles on screen with both Hart and Jackson; the former giving a fine performance that’s easily separated from his gargantuan celebrity status, and the latter making a meal out of the final episodes (as he rightly should).
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To that end, “Fight Night” enjoys leaning into genre, with ’70s visuals in the title sequence and multi-frame editing, an irresistible soundtrack, sequences plucked from a crime procedural or heist movie, and the kind of exaggerated characters that modern TV is always trying to water down and restrain with realism. It’s lavish and sexy and slick in exactly the way these figures would have been (though for a show that repeatedly name-drops Atlanta, the city doesn’t get much time to shine). By extension, the series is as committed to the violent intensity of later episodes, but that darkness is simmering from the start (and events have been largely embellished from history).
“Fight Night” spends much of its runtime in the aftermath of key events, so it’s worth watching for viewers who like investigations, cat-and-mouse, and how seemingly small events can change — or end — individual lives. And if you want to watch a bunch of massive stars play dress up and curse at each other, it’ll scratch that itch too.
Grade: C+
The first three episodes of “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” are now streaming on Peacock, with new episodes every Thursday.
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