Raising "Cane"

Some families can be very corrupt. They can be psychopaths and sociopaths who believe the world owe them everything. They will beat and cheat on their wife while they are constantly stealing, bribing, and creating chaos in other people's lives. The good news is that sometime these family members are finally caught. Prison is the place they should be and isn't it a nice feeling to know that soon they will be spending time in prison. Don't try to live life based on TV fantasies.

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"Along with the new "Dirty Sexy Money" and the ongoing "Brothers & Sisters," "Cane" represents a current slight return for the family-business epic. The show, set among the sugar cane fields and seaside estates of South Florida, premieres tonight on CBS, appropriately the former home of "Dallas," "Knots Landing" and "Falcon Crest," and while it's really too soon to tell whether the story is going to take us anywhere special, there are signs that it might.

Created by Cuban-born Cynthia Cidre, who wrote the screenplay for "The Mambo Kings" and grew up herself in South Florida, "Cane" is in most respects a class act, albeit one whose energy so far derives largely from a real star turn by Jimmy Smits.

Smits plays Alex Vega, the not-quite-adopted "son" of Pancho Duque (Hector Elizondo), a South Florida sugar-and-rum magnate; he is also his son-in-law, having married his own more-or-less adoptive sister Isabel (Miss Universe runner-up Paola Turbay). As it opens, Pancho has decided to divide his estate, it being his fast intent to shake all cares and business from his age, conferring them on younger strengths, while he unburthen'd crawls toward death -- which, according to his doctor, will come in six months to a year, though you can always pray to the show runner for a miracle, or a misdiagnosis." |Read more|