01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 22, 2006

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

From Billy the Kid to Tony Soprano, we've always had a soft spot for the bad guy.

Tony aside, television has been dominated by the crime fighters, not the criminals, lately.

But every action has a reaction, and it seems the other side of the law is making a bit of a comeback.

AMC is airing Hustle, about British con men, FX has Thief, starring Andre Braugher, scheduled to air next Tuesday, and NBC will unveil Heist, starring Dougray Scott and Steve Harris, tonight at 10.

"There's always been a part of us that roots for the bad guy, that's the appeal of Mafia movies," said Steve Harris, best known for playing Eugene Young on The Practice, in a conference call with TV writers.

"It's our secret fantasy life. As long as the bad guy doesn't do anything too bad, we're willing to root for them."

Harris said he was looking for a totally different role than he played on The Practice -- and no, he does not watch The Practice's successor, Boston Legal.

The thieves on Heist are not garden-variety thugs who smash your car window and steal your stereo. They're slick, smooth professionals planning a multimillion dollar score of dazzling complexity.

Nobody gets hurt. At least, nobody's supposed to get hurt.

The victims are banks, insurance companies, fat cats -- and who cares if they get taken?

Heist's chief thief Mickey O'Neil (Scott) tells his partner that "robbing faceless, hegemonic corporations seemed, in a strange way, the right thing to do."

Scott is probably best known for his role as a rogue agent in Misson: Impossible II, and will play Moses in a new version of The Ten Commandments coming from ABC next month.

Heist is a 13-episode series that focuses on a daring plan to rob Beverly Hills jewelry stores during Oscar week, when they are full of bling that will adorn stars during the big ceremony.

Produced by Doug Limon (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) and brothers Mark and Robb Cullen, who wrote FX's underrated gambling comedy Lucky, Heist aspires to be a slick, sexy caper story that borrows from Quentin Tarantino and Ocean's 11.

Unfortunately, Heist is so busy proving its own cleverness that it never turns into something you care about.

There's the Tarantino-esque banter between Scott and Harris as they're in the midst of a robbery, moving from philosophy ("There's no virtue if there's no immorality") to pop culture to a debate over whether Mother Teresa really believed in God.

There are dizzying camera angles, a visual shorthand for cool.

We have the traditional assemblage of the gang, which besides Scott and Harris includes Lola (Marika Dominczyk), the tough babe; Pops (Seymour Cassel), the wily old safecracker; and Ricky (David Walton) the annoying kid.

Then there's romance, which is where the cops come in.

Amy Sykes (Michele Hicks) plays a detective for the Los Angeles police who's investigating O'Neil and his gang. O'Neil decides to get to know his enemy, so he goes to the same dance class as the comely detective.

A little later he catches her shoplifting some disposable razors from a market, and the two of them have a flirtatious exchange, with the promise of more to come. (Apparently there's a little thief in everyone.)

The rest of the cops seem a few steps behind the thieves when it comes to smarts.

Billy Gardell plays a portly, racist detective teamed up with black Reno Wilson. "This is just like Lethal Weapon, except I actually do hate you," Gardell tells Wilson.

Meanwhile, more subplots are spinning about -- Pops' wife has Alzheimer's, while O'Neil was shot and left for dead by a former partner, who has since taken up with O'Neil's wife -- who also thinks he's dead.

Following this?

Even tougher to follow is the enormously complicated bank robbery in the first episode that has the baffled police looking for a cab that has apparently disappeared.

And that's merely a way for the gang to raise the money it will need for that big jewel robbery still to come.