Reviews

Recently the Hallmark Channel aired the first movie in their Hallmark Mystery Movie series revolving around Samantha Kinsey, a young woman dabbling in photography and is starting out again after the break up of her relationship with her ex spouse or ex boyfriend. And she inherits a bookstore from her late uncle and begins her new career as owner and manager and part-time detective.

I am glad that they recast one of the roles in subsequent movies, the one of Philby, the friend of her late uncle's who seems to have some kind of secretive past. Clarence Williams III was missed here, along with that typical police officer who discounts Sam's opinions.

Here, Robert Wagner was fun to see as the writer and victim. The reason why he was killed was linked to a strange death and to several other events throughout the story. Even with his limited scenes, Wagner was engaging. I wanted to see more of this guy and what went wrong. Too bad it didn't lead to similar casting cues in later movies.

What I like most is Kellie Martin's character. She has a lot of book and street smarts and likes pictures and has regard for writing and mystery novels and authors. And she gives a perspective to solving these crimes that the other detectives can't and often won't. Since she is not a detective or a cop or a lawyer she is often discounted and ignored by those in the know but like Jessica Fletcher she picks up on things that those in the know miss. And I too like pictures, books and have lots of trivia and knowledge so the character is easier to identify with.

The movie though is an okay if not a great mystery with the revelation surprising and then not so, but it is held together by a nice performance from Martin. The guy who played Philby here did not seem to spark well with her though. Glad they changed that with the next film.

Recommended for those who want a break from procedural dramas and plot based shows and those who grew up with the mystery movies like "Columbo" where an unlikely character solves the crime and finds what others miss. It is a good way to pass several hours, not great but fine.

I was looking forward to seeing this as I saw the familiar MGM lion and logo--God, one of my favorites!--and when I did, i was vaguely familiar with the story of Bufford Pusser and what happened to him back in the late 1960s. But apart from seeing the Rock on screen and a few moments of action, and the Rock does have charm and likability, this movie bares hardly any resemblance to the 1973 original starring Joe Don Baker. If you want to see more of the story and what caused him to become sheriff and take on the corrupt townspeople, this movie doesn't do much. I finally got to see the first film.

You do see the Rock like Baker come back to his old town, and Baker's character was a wrestler wanting to retire, like the Rock in real life. But here the Rock is coming home from serving in the Army, and finds the mill closed and the town going to hell. You do see some of the discontent, but here apart from seeing his girlfriend forced to strip for a living, his father feeling bummed out from being laid off, and signs of people loitering about, there are no signs or indications of say how the town was! before the Rock left. you have to take it on faith that the closing of the mill destroyed his home town. There was gambling and corruption in the Baker film, but there the men were more visible, there was more antagonism, and more reason for Baker to feel he had to do something. The movie fights were dated and maybe the look is dated, but there was more motivation. The movie drifted from some of the facts about Pusser's life, but you see those creeps leave him for dead, and they did in the remake too, but there were a few more attempts on Pusser's life, more anguish--his wife was shot and killed, and he was repeatedly threatened and intimidated. The Rock got disgusted by the police's inaction, and broke the guy's bar and I don't blame him!--and in both movies he was wrongfully arrested, and both made their speeches to the juries--but in this version, somehow, it doesn't seem as affecting or as involving.

This version is also too short, clocking in at 70 odd minutes, and it seems there was something missing in between his arrival and his arrest and then his successful run as sheriff. It is amusing though that he hires his friend to be his one and only deputy, and he even tells the Rock he is a convicted felon. But the Rock doesn't care, he wants a guy whom he can trust. But it doesn't seem to be smart, having only two against all these other guys that have more muscle power than you do. And to ignore criminal procedures isn't the smartest thing either; Baker did the same thing too, but there it seemed to be a reaction to the utter lack of respect for the law that the supposed upholders of the law held, and those men used the law at every turn for their own benefit. At least, when the Rock and Baker twist the law, they have the excuse of the good of the community.

The movie ends with the opening of the mill again after the Rock and Knoxville defeat the villain. Seems easy somehow, after all that had happened, it can be re-opened just like that. Who bought it, for one, and why did it close in the first place? There isn't much motivation or story here. Apart from seeing the Rock and his getting McDonough in the end, there isn't too much to this version.

Based on a true story..inspired by actual events...The Baker one was based on Pusser's story but some things were inevitably changed. The one with the Rock appears! to be a remake of this movie, but it is based more on the movie and adding details to further fictionalize the story more than it is based on Pusser's life, and it isn't really a re-make either.

In conclusion, while this isn't a bad film, it is really not a good one either. It seems to start, get somewhere and just stops...It doesn't really end.

Good use of the Allman Brothers song though. The opening sequence is about the best moment.

I was looking forward to Dolph's latest effort especially after waiting over a year since his last release, the completely underwhelming DETENTION. This one seems to be a return to the films made in the mid-to-late 90s by say Dolph's compatriots like Steven Seagal, Sly Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The story here is basic, a cop confronting corruption in his unit, out to stop them and to stop them from either killing him or discrediting him and clearing his name after the bad guys set him up. And here Dolph resorts several times to using the karate and related martial arts that he has not used much if at all say in his last picture. And it is welcome too.

The fight scenes, to their credit, are more realistic than most depicted, and are not very long, although that fact contributes to the realism. Dolph takes on several creeps giving a store owner some crap and takes them out with either a kick, or a punch or a combination of the two. The guys don't say fight for five minutes straight, for example, although I wouldn't mind seeing such fights even though they are never all that real but they are helpful in moving the plots of these flicks along.

The action is better here than in the usual Dolph flicks and seems more realistic than say in DETENTION, with both sides getting into the action, Dolph getting hit at one point; and all are better staged and edited, and they look like they fit with the story instead of simply existing.

The time factor also helps move it along with Dolph having only one! day to train his new partner, find out who is behind the corruption and to foil the perpetrators.

It is good to see Dolph back and I look forward to the next one.

David Janssen didn't seem to have had the best of luck in movies. He appeared in approximately 32 movies while at Universal International and post that he appeared in several to a few movies of varying quality. While several were passable (Marooned, Warning Shot) were passable--watchable if not great--several were plain embarrassments (like "My Six Loves" and "Once is Not Enough").

This movie seems to be among those that Janssen shot for television, where he seemed to have had better luck. If it was on TV, I question why the people that put this out on DVD presented a fouled-up copy with beeping out several words throughout. And it looks as if it had the life--whatever life it had--sucked right out of it. I object to these censored efforts. It is one thing to place cut up versions on television due to legalities. It is another thing entirely to put them to video that I rent or purchase. The people behind this thing really do not have much of an excuse.

The picture looks grainy, the score is badly dubbed and edited and the script and the performances look dismal. The atrocious score robs several scenes of whatever tension and excitement they have going for them. And Janssen looks as if he is merely walking through the whole thing, wondering what in the hell he is doing as a former government agent enlisted by Ray Milland to investigate several cases of blackmail or so you think. John Saxon adds what little life there is to this as a rival to Janssen but when he left, the picture became a boring slog.

It is too bad that the better movies David Janssen made are not! available, like the much better "Birds of Prey" or "Nowhere to Run". Now those are much better than this one.

I give this a 1, and the DVD a 0. Again, these may be low-budget but you can do much better, guys.

I recently acquired the DVD of this early 1970s entry through Netflix and had one of the longest hearing tests I have had in a long time. I watched this movie mainly because it was one of the movies that David Janssen appeared in that has been released on DVD and one that I have not previously had had the chance to see.

But I thought I would warn those wanting to see this on DVD. The one I saw is a very cheap copy and a poor transfer at that. There are no captions! at all to help you make out what is being said, and you will need them because the volume on this is atrocious. I tried playing it on several TVs and even with the volume all the way up! it was pretty much inaudible. I could not even enjoy the movie on a so fun it is bad level nor anything else. There have been a few no frills DVDs I have rented or purchased which provide nothing in the way of features or captions, and several even forget to give captions, but this is ridiculous. I was about to get another copy of it in case it was the DVD but I doubted it after I finished it.

Anyone who has seen this DVD--I welcome your comments on this if especially you too had a hard time with this. The DVD may be say rock bottom, but the volume does not have to be.

Other than that, I will have to give this a 4. Here Janssen is taking a break from his usual roles to play a sheriff trying to find out just who or perhaps what is killing these particular victims. And it leads to a variation on the typical werewolf story. Typical TV movie length, just long enough to divert but if expanded to theatrical release, might need to be padded out a bit in order to provide a satisfying resolution. It does have several stars like Geoffrey Lewis in a small early role, and "General Hospital" fans will note the appearance of John Beradino here playing a doctor. For soap fans he played Dr. Steve Hardy on that long-running ABC soap in the 60s and 70s.

John Larroquette is the latest of those who have experienced fame on long-running television series to move on to a second career and another perhaps long-running character or franchise. Jack Klugman did it, going from "The Odd Couple" to "Quincy". Dick Van Dyke did it with his long-running sitcom to "Diagnosis Murder". Buddy Ebsen followed "The Beverly Hillbillies" with Barnaby Jones. And with Larroquette who is following up "Night Court" with "McBride", following Andy Griffith who went from his self-titled series to "Matlock".

Larroquette is given a good character here. He brings to his role a heartfelt and genuine desire to help those accused without concern for say how much they can pay; his primary concern is finding out the other and perhaps the potential and most likely suspect. That is why perhaps he gets away with what he does in court; the prosecution has the new suspect practically handed to them. The ADA and the DA here perhaps will arrest that one and then maybe McBride will end up defending that person in a subsequent trial. McBride is a throwback to the days of Perry Mason where everyone Perry defended was truly innocent. McBride uses his investigatory skills honed from his career as a police officer to spend lots of time away from his office, and what he is unable to get hold of he leaves to his companion, a former public defender who seems to be getting a better education about being a lawyer than he did in law school. He is genuinely more concerned about finding the truth than have been many TV and movie lawyers the past few years, who seem to be mainly concerned with billable hours, getting ahead of their rivals, showing off their cars, their expensive threads, you name it. But Larroquette is fine with his offices, his house, and the dog a client left him, along with the house. That feeling of satisfaction that he gets is worth more than just say getting his client off. He wants to see his client not acquitted but cleared, exonerated.

That said, I cannot say that this is the best of his character's movies yet, but it provides a nice introduction to the series. Interesting move to place Larroquette in the flashback so you say see it as he sees it as the witness or the accused tells his story. The guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My main complaint was that Larroquette agreed too quickly that he was innocent; I would think you would need a little more reason to believe that.

For those who want to see a mystery movie similar to those of the 1970s like Columbo, watch McBride. It is, for me, a respite from the procedural shows and the seemingly endless reality shows all over the cable wires of late.

This may contain several references to the movie for those who haven't seen it yet. Then again, it may get some curious about it to watch in case it airs again.