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'Sin City Tow' digs for the absolute worst of Las Vegas
Elmer from The Tow Truck Company appears in a scene from "Sin City Tow." (Discovery Channel / Bodega Pictures)
Shawn from Ashley's Towing appears in a scene from "Sin City Tow." (Discovery Channel / Bodega Pictures)
Jeremy from The Tow Truck Company appears in a scene from "Sin City Tow." (Discovery Channel / Bodega Pictures)
“Sin City Tow” premieres at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Discovery Channel. (Discovery Channel)
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ByChristopher Lawrence/Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 18, 2024 - 6:00 am
Updated June 18, 2024 - 6:56 pm
Our fair city hasn’t looked this bleak since Nicolas Cage drank himself to death in “Leaving Las Vegas” — and most of that was filmed in Laughlin.
The reality series “Sin City Tow,” premiering at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Discovery Channel, follows the workers at The Tow Truck Company and Ashley’s Towing as they retrieve cars in and around the resort corridor.
For the most part, it’s fine.
The drivers open up about hustling to collect their bounties. At The Tow Truck Company, that’s $75 for a regular tow, $140.68 as a “drop fee” to release a car before it’s towed, and $600 to tow a big rig and its trailer.
And the dangers inherent to the job are front and center, as the drivers are cursed at, threatened and swung upon.
But, wow, does “Sin City Tow” seem to go out of its way to make Las Vegas look like the worst place on Earth.
There’s a “10 a.m. stripper fight” and a grown man dressed like a baby, complete with a giant diaper — and that’s just in the intro.
Right out of the gate, a driver named Jeremy gets a call about a Nissan Armada parked in a fire lane near The Orleans. Once Jeremy’s hooked up the car and lifted its rear wheels off the ground, a man crawls out of the backseat with his pants around his ankles. He’s followed by a woman reaching for her fur coat. The guy says he just maxed out his credit card buying chips — always a good move — but offers Jeremy $400 worth of those chips to cover the drop fee.
The whole thing feels every bit as real as it sounds.
“Sin City Tow’s” transitional scenes play like outtakes from “Cops,” with close-ups of scantily clad women — one woman on the Strip flashes the camera — and sound bites from random sketchy looking people.
“Three days ago,” one of them says, “these two German girls took me back to they hotel room and did me the freakiest I’ve ever been in my life.”
Well, OK then. But what does that have to do with towing?
“Don’t bring your kids here,” a showgirl impersonator declares. “Just sayin’.”
“It’s a fantasy land,” a tow truck driver named Elmer says. “You can pretty much do whatever you want.”
No, Elmer, you can’t. You should know better than that.
“Sin City Tow’s” producers clearly don’t.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on X.
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