Producer, co-star have high hopes for ‘The Strip’

Kimberley McGee

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1999 | 10:56 a.m.

In the spring of 1998 Joel Silver came to Las Vegas for a week.

The glitzy, grown-up city stole his heart -- and a big chunk of change that he hopes to get back in the form of good ratings for his new television show, "The Strip," which debuts at 9 tonight on KCNG Channel 25. (That's UPN, which is not carried by Cox Cable.)

The executive producer of such of major movies as the "Lethal Weapon" and "Die Hard" series, as well as the recent blockbuster "The Matrix," Silver found Las Vegas to his liking while here filming "Lethal Weapon 4."

"Rarely do you spend a week in Las Vegas. Well, I rarely ever spent a week in Las Vegas, but it's such a wild place," Silver said in a recent conference call with reporters.

And, it seems, hungry for Hollywood business.

"L.A. is pushing us out of Los Angeles, they are making it virtually impossible to shoot (productions there)," Silver said.

He wanted "The Strip" to have the retro-hip quality of those '70s cops-and-robbers series. "It feels like those shows I remember I loved when I was a little less sophisticated, maybe. It has kind of a 'Starsky and Hutch,' Dan Tanna kind of feel," Silver said.

On the show, Sean Patrick Flanery plays Elvis Ford, a Las Vegas native and rebel cop, sort of a Mel Gibson-Don Johnson mix, and Guy Torry plays Jesse Weir, a witty cop from Philadelphia. In the first episode, the two lose their jobs as Metro police officers and land positions as renegade hotel "security consultants" -- a job that that requires a lot of car chases and drives along the scenic neon Strip.

"They are composites of all the buddy cops we've done before, you can't do that much new in a buddy-cop relationship," Silver said. "But the characters are out there and UPN wants us to really go for it. I think we have a chance that if people watch it they will really enjoy it."

"The Strip" is the second TV series this season for Silver, who also produces the controversial, low-rated "Action" (9:30 p.m. Thursdays, KVVU Channel 5), a half-hour Fox comedy about an amoral movie producer. The show has been adored by critics but panned by viewers.

He's hoping "The Strip" will do better.

"It's grueling having the audience not watch 'Action,' but I'm happy with that show as well (as 'The Strip')," he said. "It's fun to make it and have people respond to what you are doing immediately."

And if the viewing public gives "The Strip" a thumbs down?

"If people don't watch then it's not going to feel good but I'm enjoying doing the shows," Silver said. "I think both (of) these shows are not standard television fare and maybe that's the mistake, but I'm proud of them both,"

He thinks Las Vegas' name recognition alone should attract a national crowd intrigued with the mystique of the city. "It's a city that is changing substantially now. Every week that we are there some new, cool thing happens ... that gives the city a whole new sensibility," Silver said.

Originally, the show had a gritty, down-and-dirty feel to it in the guise of "Leaving Las Vegas." But that image of Las Vegas is passe, he said, and he re-tooled the show to represent a more contemporary view of the city.

"Vegas has a really glossy feel to it now," Silver said. "When I was younger it really had a seedy feel to it. It really has a much higher end to it now."

Once the producers made a deal with Caesars Palace hotel-casino to use it as a backdrop, the show had a more slick look, he said. Silver then hand- picked his hotel owner, actor Joe Viterelli, who plays Cameron Greene.

Silver liked Viterelli's tough-guy portrayal of Robert DeNiro's sidekick, Jelly, in the motion picture "Analyze This." Viterelli liked Silver's reputation.

"Everything that (Silver) does is successful," Viterelli said recently. "He had a writing team with him that came from 'Lethal Weapon,' 'Die Hard,' so on and so forth, and I like action-driven stories, particularly with comedy attached."

And Viterelli was ready to settle down into a permanent character.

"I kind of wanted to do something that hopefully would go well so I'd have a character I could develop over time," he said. "When you do a series you are developing different things for the character. I find that challenging and interesting. It's like a chessboard, there is always something to choose from."

This is the first television series for Viterelli, who has mostly played character parts of the New York thug-with-a-heart variety.

"There is always something that I try to find from each of the characters, some underlying power, some humor," he said.

And Viterelli's got some advice for viewers regarding "The Strip": "Watch it or else."

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