Peacock's star-studded 'Fight Night' is the heist you won't believe is real: Review

The best true stories are the ones you can't believe are real.

That's the way you'll feel watching Peacock's "Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist" (streaming Thursdays, ★★★ out of four), which dramatizes the story of an armed robbery at a party backed by the "Black Mafia" in 1970 Atlanta. Masked men held gangsters at gunpoint and stole their cash and jewels at an afterparty celebrating Muhammad Ali's comeback fight against Jerry Quarry. It's as if a less likable Ocean's Eleven crew robbed Tony Soprano and Soprano went on the warpath, amid the backdrop of the 1970s racist South. And it all really happened.

With a ridiculously star-studded cast, including Kevin Hart, Don Cheadle, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard and Samuel L. Jackson, "Fight Night" is an ambitious story with a long list of characters. The series starts off slowly but is off to the races once the second episode begins. With all the chess pieces are in place, creator Shaye Ogbonna ("The Chi") crafts a gripping crime drama that is as emotional as it is viscerally violent.

Lest you think it's a too-familiar heist story, this isn't your typical lighthearted tale: The thieves aren't the good guys. They're actually pretty despicable, and their actions prompt a cascade of violence in the Black criminal underworld. Instead of pulling for the thieves, you're rooting for Gordon "Chicken Man" Williams (Hart), a small-time hustler who organized the doomed afterparty with his partner Vivian (Henson). He wanted to prove his management potential to bigwig mobsters like Frank Moten (Jackson), and it all went horribly wrong. Chicken had nothing to do with the theft, but he has a hard time convincing his bosses. Now Chicken has to find the real culprits before Moten finds him.

Also on the case is Detective J.D. Hudson (Cheadle), one of the first Black cops in an integrated Atlanta police department, and a man loved by neither his white colleagues nor the Black citizens he polices. Hudson spends the first part of the series as a bodyguard for Ali (Dexter Darden), protecting him from a town that doesn't want anything to do with the Black boxer. Some of the best parts of "Fight Night" are in the quiet conversations between Hudson an Ali, two diametrically opposed men who each see the world and their own Black identities in very different ways.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

But the real meat of "Fight Night" is in the heist and its aftermath, stark reminders that hey, armed robbery isn't really as fun as Danny Ocean would have you believe. There is pain, trauma and death as the crime ignites a vengeful Moten to rain hellfire down on Atlanta. Some TV projects lure in A-list talent and then give their big-time movie actors nothing to work with, but "Fight Night" doesn't make the mistake of wasting Jackson and company. There is plenty of scenery for everyone to chew, and they all have their teeth out.

Henson is another standout, playing a character who dresses as boisterously as her iconic Cookie Lyon from Fox's "Empire," but is a much more subdued personality than the actress is usually tapped to portray. She can do subtle just as well as bold. Hart brings his comedy chops to Chicken, but it's all gallows humor when the character realizes he can't hustle his way out of this nightmare.

It's not enough to have a stranger-than-fiction true story to tell to make a limited series like this sing; there has to be depth to the characters and context. "Fight Night" manages to weave it all together beautifully after its slow start, making it one of the more addictive series this year.

You may not root for the thieves this time, but you won't be able to stop looking at the chaos they cause.