I admit I liked the basic idea of this film. What if an FBI agent stumbled across some cases of serial killers getting murdered by another serial killer, a serial killer killer? Cool, and something different to throw into the serial killer film subgenre. Well, we can always hope. Patrick Muldoon, looking like the theoretical lovechild of David Duchovny and Jason Patric, plays the young FBI agent Jason Chandler who works in the serial killer unit. He partners with Stephanie Dobson (Cathy Moriarty), and they work for William Heywood (Tim Thomerson). Chandler discovers a bunch of serial killers who are dead or stopped killing, and he goes to his wheelchair-bound mentor (Fred Ward), who has about six scenes and never leaves his living room. Chandler begins to suspect Heywood and his elite squad (the "Red Team") of killing serial killers, and he witnesses a perp get the Red Team treatment (he is thrown off a bridge). This throws a monkey wrench into his investigation of J. B. Gaines (C. Thomas Howell), a serial killer who cuts the tongues out of young girls' mouths.
Neat basic idea, but I felt cheated and patronized by the film makers. At one point, Heywood takes Gaines' watch before leaving him to die. Now, we have seen another Heywood victim without a watch, and we see Heywood take the perp's watch, and everyone talks about how serial killers take trophies from their victims, so naturally Heywood is taking timepieces as trophies of his serial killer victims- but we still need Chandler to tell Gaines that, just in case one person out in the audience shrieks "hey, what's the deal with the watches?" Also, the Red Team sets up Chandler with fake notes from Gaines. Chandler's home is wired to an alarm. Someone from the Red Team gets in, leaves the fake message for Chandler, and does not set off the alarm. Later, when two Red Team members sneak into Chandler's house to kill him, they set off the alarm. Worse still, when one of the fake notes gives Chandler an address where Gaines is supposedly killing a woman as we speak, Chandler goes flying over there alone, gun drawn, not stopping long enough to remember all that great training Fred Ward taught him. How many serial killers give out addresses to the FBI, in case they might want to prevent another killing? The film's original title, "Red Team," and the video title give away the fact that the Red Team is involved in killing serial killers, thereby negating any suspense the film had planned. The final shot involving the FBI director tries to be very droll and ironic, but it is just a weak ending to a weak film. I cannot recommend "The Crimson Code."
Neat basic idea, but I felt cheated and patronized by the film makers. At one point, Heywood takes Gaines' watch before leaving him to die. Now, we have seen another Heywood victim without a watch, and we see Heywood take the perp's watch, and everyone talks about how serial killers take trophies from their victims, so naturally Heywood is taking timepieces as trophies of his serial killer victims- but we still need Chandler to tell Gaines that, just in case one person out in the audience shrieks "hey, what's the deal with the watches?" Also, the Red Team sets up Chandler with fake notes from Gaines. Chandler's home is wired to an alarm. Someone from the Red Team gets in, leaves the fake message for Chandler, and does not set off the alarm. Later, when two Red Team members sneak into Chandler's house to kill him, they set off the alarm. Worse still, when one of the fake notes gives Chandler an address where Gaines is supposedly killing a woman as we speak, Chandler goes flying over there alone, gun drawn, not stopping long enough to remember all that great training Fred Ward taught him. How many serial killers give out addresses to the FBI, in case they might want to prevent another killing? The film's original title, "Red Team," and the video title give away the fact that the Red Team is involved in killing serial killers, thereby negating any suspense the film had planned. The final shot involving the FBI director tries to be very droll and ironic, but it is just a weak ending to a weak film. I cannot recommend "The Crimson Code."