Colors of Crime

Daisy (Drew Barrymore) encounters a woman on her delivery. Sketch artist Jack Whitfield (Jeff Fahey) helps Daisy recover the woman's face who is suspected have killed Tommy Silvers. He is shocked to see the resemblance to his wife Rayanne (Sean Young). He changes the picture before handing it in to Lieutenant Tonelli. There is strain in his marriage and he wonders if she has something on the side. As his fake sketch leads to a suspect, he starts investigating on his own. He is shocked again to find out Rayanne is working for Silvers.

This needs much more intensity. The idea of a thriller centering on the police sketch artist is interesting. The movie sets it up pretty well. It needs more Barrymore as the damsel in distress. The movie falls flat as Fahey is left to his own device. The premise may be good but it's a long slow downhill slide in this non-thrilling thriller.

"Jack Whitfield" (Jeff Fahey) is a sketch artist who works for the Los Angeles Police Department and has been instructed to draw the image of a possible murder suspect as described by a witness named "Daisy" (Drew Barrymore). To his horror he then draws a picture of his wife, "Rayanne Whitfield" (Sean Young). Not wanting to implicate her he hurriedly draws another picture of a person he had just met named "Claire" (Stacy Haiduk) and presents it to his boss, "Tonelli" (James Tolkan). A little later Daisy is killed and Jack becomes a murder suspect as well. Now, rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that although some scenes were a bit unrealistic I still enjoyed it for the most part. I liked the performance of Jeff Fahey and I thought Sean Young definitely added some heat. All in all then, I rate this movie as slightly above average.

"Sketch Artist" feels like just about everyone involved in making the movie - the actors, director, and writer - has the life sucked out of them before filming started. To begin with, take the title character, played by Jeff Fahey. There is no particular reason why we feel we should get involved in his plight. He is almost completely without emotion or passion, his appearance is sloppy, he makes some pretty dumb decisions, and his investigation of the mystery is done incredibly slowly, like he just doesn't care about what could happen to him. The director didn't seem to care about his character as well. There's no feeling of tension or panic anywhere in the movie, and the climax has the impact of a wet noodle hitting the ground.

I will admit that Drew Barrymore, in a limited role, does give a surprisingly decent performance. And it's always fun to see bald-headed actor James Tolkan play another authority figure, though his role is limited as well. But neither actor is given enough to make the movie worth watching.

An appropriately scruffy-looking Jeff Fahey turns in a believable and energetic performance as a police sketch artist who draws what he believes may be his wife based on a description by a murder witness, and must then balance his work duties while trying to figure out what happened. Sketch Artist is a typical 1990s crime thriller in pacing and plot development, for good or worse, but the direction is slick and the film plays out like a sexy foreplay; the premise is intriguing, the music enticing, and there is steam in the air. That is until the finale, which features cardboard bad guys who would seem more at place being cuffed by Mickey Mouse than exposed by a wolf-like Fahey. A young Drew Barrymore impresses in the few scenes she has as the witness.

Could have done a better film with this premise. The first two thirds of the movie, where it was much more of a psychological story was much better than the denouement where some small amount of action was attempted. Jeff Fahey's performance was consistently good. It's good to see an actor who doesn't look like such a pretty boy. Sean Young was good at the beginning, but by the end, she had given in to the script.