How is it possible to freshen up a story like this? Here is this New York homicide detective, Armand Assante, who is part of a team trying to trace a serial killer with a penchant for broadcasting his murders on the internet. The murders are always done live but at a distance. Eg., the broadcast begins only when the victim is already tied to a post and is being drowned by the rising tide. We've already got the cop at odds with his boss. We've already got the internet involved.
Well, you can make the detective a terminal case of lung cancer, who keeps his medical status from his wife and adolescent boy and from everybody else except the young blond ex-hooker who serves as his heroin connection. Yes, he's an addict too. How's that for originality? The writers seem to have thrown up their hands in despair. The well is dry. There is nothing else to pull into the plot. And what there is, isn't especially well written. The first scene introduces us to Assante, his wife, and his young boy seated around the breakfast table. Assante's wife, Clare Holman, is trying to keep her husband healthy. In pursuit of this unattainable goal, she has dunked a pack of his cigarettes in his morning coffee and has fed him toast with no butter. Her determination, up against Assante's frustration, is supposed to be amusing in a sit-com manner, but the way in which it's directed and played suggests not agape but anger. In fact, nobody ever laughs. Except once or twice, Assante does, but then he laughs at a meeting, after making an unamusing comment, so the affect is inappropriate and he sounds a little schizo.
Assante, however, can be a very good actor and he occasionally does more than hit the mark. He's like Al Pacino in "Insomnia" but with a bit more bounce left in the coil. And the locations are good, too, not spectacular, mostly distinguished by their uniform, ghoulish green grubbiness. There's garbage all over the place. Rotting boards and hulks of detritus slap against bridge pilings. If you're going to explode yourself and the killer, as Assante does, this is the place to do it.
Man, it's depressing. And it's confusing too. I have no idea how Assante, a cyber "dinosaur", ever managed to figure out the location of the final attempt at murder. And the villainy seems to be pinned arbitrarily on anti-global terrorists, which is a little like blaming war on pacifists. And the script makes the murderer an Indian geek. Give me a good, old-fashioned, self-righteous, well-acted psychopath any day, along the lines of Kevin Spacey in "Seven." There is one good scene. Armand Assante emerging from the Christopher Street subway entrance, but I'm among the very few people for whom this will have resonance.
If you like marginalized cops and serial murderers, this may be your cup of tea. But I would guess that just about everyone by now must admit that the pattern is exhausted.
Well, you can make the detective a terminal case of lung cancer, who keeps his medical status from his wife and adolescent boy and from everybody else except the young blond ex-hooker who serves as his heroin connection. Yes, he's an addict too. How's that for originality? The writers seem to have thrown up their hands in despair. The well is dry. There is nothing else to pull into the plot. And what there is, isn't especially well written. The first scene introduces us to Assante, his wife, and his young boy seated around the breakfast table. Assante's wife, Clare Holman, is trying to keep her husband healthy. In pursuit of this unattainable goal, she has dunked a pack of his cigarettes in his morning coffee and has fed him toast with no butter. Her determination, up against Assante's frustration, is supposed to be amusing in a sit-com manner, but the way in which it's directed and played suggests not agape but anger. In fact, nobody ever laughs. Except once or twice, Assante does, but then he laughs at a meeting, after making an unamusing comment, so the affect is inappropriate and he sounds a little schizo.
Assante, however, can be a very good actor and he occasionally does more than hit the mark. He's like Al Pacino in "Insomnia" but with a bit more bounce left in the coil. And the locations are good, too, not spectacular, mostly distinguished by their uniform, ghoulish green grubbiness. There's garbage all over the place. Rotting boards and hulks of detritus slap against bridge pilings. If you're going to explode yourself and the killer, as Assante does, this is the place to do it.
Man, it's depressing. And it's confusing too. I have no idea how Assante, a cyber "dinosaur", ever managed to figure out the location of the final attempt at murder. And the villainy seems to be pinned arbitrarily on anti-global terrorists, which is a little like blaming war on pacifists. And the script makes the murderer an Indian geek. Give me a good, old-fashioned, self-righteous, well-acted psychopath any day, along the lines of Kevin Spacey in "Seven." There is one good scene. Armand Assante emerging from the Christopher Street subway entrance, but I'm among the very few people for whom this will have resonance.
If you like marginalized cops and serial murderers, this may be your cup of tea. But I would guess that just about everyone by now must admit that the pattern is exhausted.