Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!
This week, Torello’s war on Luca continues!
Episode 1.3 “Shadow Dancer”
(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on September 26th, 1986)
With the frequency killer now dead, Torello and his men are once again free to focus on trying to bust Ray Luca. The sooner they do it, the better. For one thing, Torello is becoming so obsessed that, even though his wife is pregnant, Torello’s dreams are still dominated by Luca taunting him. Also, Luca’s latest robbery has resulted in a death. Vincent Noonan (Michael Kemmerling), a former cellmate of Frank Holman’s (Ted Levine,) lost it during their latest home invasion and beat to death Mrs. Novak (Nancy Sheeber).
(Noonan, it turns out, has a history of losing control. It probably wasn’t a good idea to hire him in the first place but, with Luca no refusing to personally take part in robberies, the crew had to find a third man and quickly. Holman recommended Noonan because of how loyal Noonan was to him in prison)
Eager to solve the case and take down Luca, the Major Case Unit starts to put pressure on Luca’s boss, Phil Bartoli (Jon Polito). After his weekly craps game is broken up by Danny Krychek, Bartoli tells Luca that he has to do something to get the police to back off. Bartoli orders him to turn Noonan over to the police. Luca, who no longer handles dirty work himself, tells Holman to take care of it. Holman sends Noonan on a job and then tips off Torello. Despite Danny telling him that Noonan would die before turning into a rat, Torello is convinced that, if he takes Noonan alive, he’ll be able to get Noonan to give up Luca. (What Torello doesn’t realize is that Noonan has never actually met Luca. To quote Willy Cicci, “The family had lots of buffers.”)
It’s all for naught, though. Torello and the cops chase Noonan all over the streets of Chicago and, in the end, Noonan dies while trying to escape. Much like Homicide’s Luther Mahoney, Luca appears to be untouchable …. for now.
This episode worked best as a character study. After last week’s somewhat over-the-top villain, this episode reminded us that Luca and Torello are two tightly-wound men who struggle with emotion. Beyond his own self-absorption, Luca lacks the emotions necessary to truly understand his fellow humans. Torello, meanwhile, gets too emotional. Whether he’s pursuing Ray Luca or snapping at a condescending salesman, Torello is a self-styled crusader who appears to be going slowly but surely insane. This wasn’t a particularly complex episode but it felt important. It was a reminder of what this show is all about.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!
This week, Torello and company search Chicago for a serial killer.
Episode 1.2 “Final Transmission”
(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on September 19th, 1986)
Mike Torello and the members of the MCU would really like to go after Luca and his crew but, unfortunately, there’s a serial killer on the loose in Chicago. Realizing that the MCU is going to be tied up trying to track down Ray Pernell (John Snyder) before he kills again, Luca orders his crew to commit even more robberies. Luca explains to a crestfallen Paulie that Luca will no longer be taking part in the robberies. Luca is the boss and the boss doesn’t get his hands dirty. Instead, Luca spends most of this episode meeting with Murray Weisbord’s man in Chicago, Max Goldman (Andrew Dice Clay).
This was an odd episode. On the one hand, the show went out of its way to recreate Chicago in the early 60s. The soundtrack was early rock and roll. The cars all had tailfins. The suits, the cigarettes, Luca’s haircut, all of the details screamed 1960s. But then the episode revolved around a serial killer who thought his mother was addressing him through the television and who looked and dressed like a late 70s punk rocker. I assume that Ray Pernell was based on Richard Speck, the notorious Chicago serial killer who, in 1966, murdered 8 student nurses. Like Speck, Pernell had an identifying tattoo and both men were traced through the National Maritime Union. That said, Pernell just seemed so out-of-place, with his sleeveless shirt and his punkish haircut that he just didn’t seem to belong in the world of Crime Story.
That said, I will give this episode some credit. In the pilot, Luca often seemed like a clueless punk. In this episode, he quickly realized that the MCU would be too busy hunting for Pernell to devote much time to him and he took advantage of that fact. Luca’s not quite as dumb as he sometimes seems. This episode also showed that he was capable of thinking ahead. When he suspects that someone is listening in on his conversation with Goldman, he resists the temptation to burst into the room next door with his gun drawn. (If he had, he would have run straight into Torello and Danny.) This episode shows that Luca is learning and growing. He not the buffoonish hothead that Torello originally assumed him to be. In fact, he’s even more dangerous.
This episode ends with Pernell somehow (it’s not really clear how) taking an entire television news broadcast hostage. Torello takes him down as the cameras roll and the entire city of Chicago watches. It’s not a bad ending but it just doesn’t feel right for the show. It’s a Miami Vice ending. This is Crime Story!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!
In 1986, riding high on the success of Miami Vice, Michael Mann signed on as executive producer of Crime Story, a cop show that Mann imagined would run for five seasons and which would follow a group of cops and gangsters from 1960s Chicago to 1980s Las Vegas. The show was co-created by former Chicago cop Chuck Adamson and it starred another former Chicago cop, Dennis Farina.
Though generally well-received by critics, Crime Story struggled in the ratings. The show’s highly serialized-nature made it difficult for audiences to follow. (This was in the pre-streaming age, when viewers couldn’t just get online and catch up with what they may have missed.) Crime Story only lasted for two seasons but it has since developed a strong cult following and is now regularly listed as one of the best cop shows ever made.
(Dir by Abel Ferrara, originally aired on September 18th, 1986)
In Chicago, on a rainy night in the early 1960s, a group of masked robbers hold up a fancy restaurant and then try to escape with a group of terrified hostages. On the scene is the Major Crimes Unit, led by the grim Lt. Torello (Dennis Farina, a former real-life cop). The end result is that all of the robbers end up dead, the hostages end up traumatized, and one of Torello’s men, the obviously doomed Wes Connelly (William Russ), appears to be losing his mind over the violence that he has to deal with every day.
The plot of the pilot is actually pretty simple. A gang of thieves is holding up restaurants, banks, and stores in Chicago. Torello believes that an ambitious gangster named Ray Luca (Tony Denison) is behind the robberies and Torello is correct. The cool and sociopathic Ray is working with Johnny O’Donnel (David Caruso). O’Donnel may be a childhood friend of Luca’s but his parents are friends with Torello. When gangster Phil Bartoli (Jon Polito) orders Luca to kill O’Donnel after the latter robs one of Bartoli’s jewelry stores, it’s personal all-around.
Plot-wise, it’s pure Michael Mann. The cops and the gangsters are both obsessive. Luca will kill anyone to get ahead in the underworld. Oddly, his only real loyalty seems to be to his dumbest henchman, Pauli Taglia (John Santucci, a real-life former jewel thief who was once arrested by Dennis Farina). Torello may be fighting on the side of the law but he’s often just as quick to resort to violence as Luca. Director Abel Ferrara’s style can be seen in a scene where Torello is visited by the ghost of the recently murdered Wes Connelly. Torello is burned out and paranoid, flying into a rage when he sees his wife, Julie (Darlanne Fluegel), dancing with another man at a wedding. (The man in question turns out to be Torello’s cousin, whom Torello didn’t even recognize because he apparently doesn’t have much of a connection to anyone outside of the police force.) Towards the end of the episode, there’s a shoot-out in a department store and it’s hard not to notice that neither the crooks nor the cops seem to be all that concerned with the innocent bystanders trying to not get caught in the crossfire.
The pilot is dark, gritty, and, in its way, as stylized as any episode of Miami Vice. It never seems to stop raining and, even during the day, the skies are permanently gray and dark. The early 60s are recreated like a fever dream of pop culture, with rock and roll on the soundtrack, cars with tail fins screeching down the street, and Bartoli living in a house that looks more like a tacky diner then a true home. Torello and his men wear their dark suits and trenchcoats the way that soldiers wear their uniforms.
It’s an effective pilot, though we don’t really get to know much about the men working with Torello at the Major Crimes Unit. Bill Smitrovich, in the role Detective Danny Krycheck, establishes himself as being Torello’s second-in-command but that’s about it. Stephen Lang appears in a handful of scenes as David Abrams, a liberal public defender who is the son of a prominent gangster. Both Luca and Torello seem to want to make David into an alley and the episode hints that he will eventually have to make a choice. The episode ends with Luca in sunny Florida, meeting with veteran gangster Manny Weisbord (Joseph Wiseman). Torello, meanwhile, remains in dark Chicago.
The Crime Story pilot was deemed good enough to be released as a feature film in Europe. It also led to a series on NBC, which I will be reviewing here, every Monday! On the basis of the pilot, I’m looking forward to it.
This morning I got up to make coffee for me and my wife. When I came back to our room, she had started the movie ENOUGH (2002) with Jennifer Lopez on the new projector that she bought me for Christmas. I’m not that big of a fan of Lopez, but I decided I’d go ahead and sit down to sip on my coffee prior to starting my day. I ended up watching the whole movie!
Jennifer Lopez plays Slim, a waitress in a diner in L.A., who meets a rich guy named Mitch Hiller (Billy Campbell) who impresses her when he gets rid of this rude jerk (Noah Wyle) trying to hit on her. Mitch and Slim get along famously, eventually getting married and having a cute little girl named Gracie. Everything seems perfect in their little world. Unfortunately, things aren’t what they seem, and one night Slim checks her husband’s pager. She calls the number and discovers Mitch has been cheating on her. When she confronts him about the affair, his entire countenance changes, and he begins beating the crap out of her. After the altercation, and before heading out to continue his affair, Mitch warns Slim not to leave because he refuses to live without her. With the help of her friend Ginny (Juliette Lewis) and a couple of others, Slim takes Gracie and they escape from Mitch. With all his money and connections, Mitch is able to track her down no matter where she goes. Feeling like she has no other options, Slim turns to her wealthy, estranged father, Jupiter (Fred Ward). He provides her the funds she needs to set up a new life and identity. Unfortunately, that damn Mitch tracks her down again. Narrowly escaping, Slim decides that she’s done running. She sends Gracie away with Ginny and begins training rigorously in self defense techniques. This time she’s taking the fight to Mitch with plans to end this shit once and for all.
If you’re looking for a realistic drama about the effects of spousal abuse on the family unit and then across the larger society, ENOUGH is not the movie for you. This movie is more for the Charles Bronson crowd, where the bad guys are truly evil and the audience is in complete agreement with their need to perish. This is a formula that continues to work even if you have to completely suspend your disbelief. For example:
-Is it realistic that Mitch would be able to conceal what a complete and total asshole he is for many years from Slim, but then one night turn out to practically be the sidekick of Satan?
-Is it realistic that Mitch would be able track Slim and Gracie down time and time again, no matter where she goes across the country, even after she uses her Dad’s resources to change her identity?
-Is it realistic that Slim would be able to get enough self defense training in a short period of time to be able to confront the extremely fit Mitch at the end and kick his ass?
While the setup is probably not the most realistic, we have to see images of Mitch beating up Slim on multiple occasions, even trying to kill her at one point. We also see him knock little Gracie to the ground and hurt her. We see him terrorizing her and anyone who tries to help her. This audience member just wanted to see Mitch pay.
I don’t really have any close connections to the main actors in ENOUGH, but they all do their jobs well enough to keep me involved. I have always been a fan of its director, Michael Apted. He’s made a few movies that I really like in CLASS ACTION (1991) with Gene Hackman, THUNDERHEART (1992) with Val Kilmer, and BLINK (1993) with Madeleine Stowe. He’s a more than competent director who knows how to get a reaction from his audience. This certainly may not reflect his best work, but he still handles the material in a professional manner.
My final word on ENOUGH… I enjoyed the film in the same way I like the 3 piece combo at KFC, which I really do enjoy. I know it’s probably not the best stuff out there, but the classic formula still works, and I’m satisfied when it’s all gone!
Shattered: If Your Kid’s On Drugs is a typical anti-drug video from the 1980s. The story is familiar after school special material. Kim (Megan Follows) and Rick (Rick Segall) are upper middle class kids who live in the suburbs. Rick is a track star. Kim is at the top of her class. That all changes when they start hanging out with the local drug dealer (Dermot Mulroney), who gets Rick hooked on marijuana and Kim hooked on cocaine. Kim gets an F on her report card. Rick can no longer jump the hurdles. Eventually, their parents stop drinking and taking valium long enough to force them into rehab. The message is that tough love is the only solution.
The only thing that makes Shattered: If Your Kid’s On Drugs noteworthy is the strange and unexpected presence of Burt Reynolds and Judd Nelson, playing themselves and commenting on the action. The first scene in the video is Burt and Judd driving their pickup truck through the suburbs, talking about how nice it is. “Lot of nice restaurants,” Burt says. “Are you going to buy me lunch?” Judd asks. “Lot of nice restaurants,” Burt replies. “This town is the American Dream,” Judd says. “Or the American nightmare,” Burt adds. When Kim and Rick are getting high in Dermot Mulroney’s chartreuse microbus, Burt and Judd sit on a picket fence and shoot the crap. Burt can’t understand why teens would use drugs and Judd reminds him that it has been a while since he was a teenager. Rumor has it that both Burt and Judd appeared in this video to fulfill court-ordered community service.
Everything works out in the end. If you have any doubt, just look at Burt giving us a thumbs up before the final credits roll.
Last night, I watched the brilliant Lifetime film, Lizzie Borden Took An Axe.
Why Was I Watching It?
First off, as everyone who reads this site should know by now, I love Lifetime movies. Add to that, I also happen to like true crime films. (It’s not for nothing that my twitter bio reads, “Just a sweet little thing with morbid thoughts.”) So, it’s really not so much a question of why I was watching it as how could I not watch it?
What Was It About?
On a hot summer day in 1892, both Andrew Borden and his wife are hacked to death. Suspicion is immediately cast upon their daughter Lizzie (Christina Ricci), a free-spirited Sunday School teacher who is also known for being a compulsive shop lifter. Is Lizzie guilty or was the crime committed by her older sister Emma (Clea Duvall) or the maid or a mysterious stranger who was seen around town on the day of crime? Though the case itself remains officially unsolved, this film makes a pretty convincing argument that Lizzie was guilty and was only acquitted because nobody, in 19th century America, could bring themselves to believe that a woman was capable of such a violent crime.
What Worked?
It all worked. Lizzie Borden was one of the greatest Lifetime movies that I’ve ever seen. It took all of the elements that we expect from a good Lifetime movie — scandal, sex, and girls literally getting away with murder — and pushed them to such an extreme that the end result was absolutely brilliant. Christina Ricci and Clea Duvall both gave great performances and Nick Gomez directed with an eye towards the surreal, the morbid, and the darkly humorous.
The scene towards the end where Lizzie whispered her confession to Emma was one of the best in the history of Lifetime.
What Did Not Work?
As I said above, it all worked.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I related to the Borden family maid, Bridget Sullivan, because she was Irish and hated having to wash windows.
Well, it’s that time of year when I look at the list of the films that I’ve seen over the past 12 months and I realize that there’s quite a few that I haven’t gotten around to reviewing yet. Here are my thoughts on six of them.
The Call (dir by Brad Anderson)
Abigail Breslin is kidnapped by a serial killer. While trapped in the trunk of the killer’s car, Breslin manages to call 911. Breslin’s call is answered by Halle Berry, a veteran operator who is recovering from a trauma that — by an amazing and totally implausible coincidence — was caused by the same guy who has just kidnapped Breslin.
Before it became a feature film, The Call was originally developed as a weekly TV series and, as I watched, it was easy to imagine weekly episodes that would all feature a different guest star calling 911 and needing help. For the first hour or so, The Call is well-made and acted but undistinguished. However, during the final 30 minutes, the entire film suddenly goes crazy with Breslin running around in her bra, Berry turning into a blood thirsty vigilante, and the killer suddenly getting very verbose. However, those 30 minutes of pure insanity were just what The Call needed to be memorable. There are some films that definitely benefit from going over-the-top and The Call is one of them.
Copperhead (dir by Ronald Maxwell)
Copperhead is a historical drama that takes place during the Civil War. In upstate New York, farmer Abner Breech (Billy Campbell) is ardently opposed to both the Civil War and the union cause. In most movies, this would make Abner the villain but, in Copperhead, he’s portrayed as being a man of principle who, by refusing to compromise on his views, is ostracized and ultimately persecuted by the rest of his village. Abner’s views also bring him into conflict with his own son, who is pro-Union.
Copperhead is a slow-moving film that features some rather good performances along with some fairly bad ones. However, I’m a history nerd so I enjoyed it. It certainly tells a different story from what we’ve come to expect from American films about the Civil War.
It’s A Disaster (dir by Todd Berger)
Of the six films reviewed in this post, It’s A Disaster is the one to see. In this darker than dark comedy, Julia Stiles brings her new boyfriend (David Cross) to Sunday brunch with 6 of her closest friends. During the brunch, terrorists explode a dirty bomb in the city. With everyone trapped inside the house and waiting for the world to either end or somehow revert back to normal, long-simmering resentments come to the forefront.
To say anything else about It’s a Disaster would be unfair so I’ll just say that it’s a very funny film, featuring excellent work from both Stiles and Cross. If Jean-Paul Sartre was alive and writing today, he would probably end up writing something very similar to It’s a Disaster.
See Girl Run (dir by Nate Meyer)
Bleh! That’s probably the best description I can give you of this film. It’s just a whole lot of bleh.
Emmie (Robin Tunney) is unhappy with her boring marriage so she runs back to her Maine hometown, stops wearing makeup and washing her hair, and pines for her high school boyfriend, Jason (Adam Scott), who works at a sea food restaurant. Jason also happens to be friends with Emmie’s depressed brother, Brandon (Jeremy Strong). It’s the same basic plot as Young Adult, just with no humor and a lot more talking. In Young Adult, it was hard not to admire Charlize Theron’s wonderfully misguided character. In See Girl Run, you just want to tell Robin Tunny to take a shower, put on some clothes that don’t look like they were stolen from a hospital storage closet, and stop whining all the time.
It’s difficult to put into words just how much I hated this movie. This is one of those films that critics tend to describe as being “a film for adults.” I have to agree — this is a movie for really boring, depressing adults who like to talk and talk about how their lives haven’t worked out. If See Girl Run is what being an adult is like, I’ll just continue to be an immature brat, thank you very much.
UnHung Hero (dir by Brian Spitz)
So, this is not only the worst documentary of 2013 but it’s also quite probably one of the worst documentaries ever made. The film opens with footage of Patrick Moote (who claims to be a comedian) asking his girlfriend to marry him. As Moote goes on (and on) to tell us, she turns down his proposal and then dumps him because, according to her, his penis is too small. Moote spends the rest of the film talking to various people and asking them whether size really matters.
Well, he could have just asked me and saved a lot of time. I’m sorry if this endangers any fragile male egos but yes, size does matter. If Moote’s penis really is as tiny as he claims it is, I probably would have turned down his proposal as well. Then again, Moote could be hung like Jamie Foxx and I’d probably still refuse to marry him because, quite frankly, he’s the whiniest and most annoying person that I’ve ever seen. He’s like an even less charming version of Morgan Spurlock. What Patrick Moote never seems to understand is that size matters but personality matters even more.
Would You Rather (dir by David Guy Levy)
Would you rather have a root canal or sit through this piece of crap? Having seen Would You Rather, I can tell you that it’s not an easy question to answer.
Jeffrey Combs plays a sadistic millionaire who invited a bunch of strangers (including Brittany Snow, John Heard, June Squibb, and Sasha Grey) to his mansion and forces them to play an elaborate and deadly game of Would You Rather. Unfortunately, none of the characters are interesting, the film’s sadism is more boring than shocking, and talented actor Combs is totally wasted as the one-note villain.
Through the Shattered Lens 