Written in Blood

You never know what you'll find when the dogs wake you at 3am. This interesting film-noir thriller was not as good as it could have been.

I like Michael T. Weiss as Jarod in "The Pretender." Of course, I liked Andrea Parker more. He tended to overact in this film and his haircut was atrocious. Normally, I wouldn't comment on something like that, but it was a definite distraction Peter Coyote played his partner who went to jail for murdering his wife and her lover. I always like Coyote and he was the best thing about this movie.

Maureen Flannigan (A Day Without a Mexican) as the hot daughter with a secret, added immensely to the action.

It was Flannigan's character that should have been built up more. We were not provided enough motivation and it left gaping holes in the story.

It was OK for 3am.

Supposedly set in Cally Forny Eh, this crapfest has ZERO palmtrees, has ONE black actor who plays the Lieutenant in charge of the Police Squad, and a few characters who are supposedly latinos. It's so realistic!

Peter Coyote was desperate to make his mortgage payment, so he took on the role of the guy inside a cell (inside another room) in the "Metropolitan Detention Center". Seriously!

As for the story - or lack of it - I had it figgered out in the bathroom. AVOID!

I wanted to see this because I liked the show "The Pretender" starring Michael T. Weiss, who appears in this film, "Written in Blood." Weiss plays Matt Ransom, a police detective. In the beginning, we see clearly that he and his wife are not getting along. He gets a call from his partner, John Traveler (Peter Coyote), telling him to get over to his place. There, Ransom finds Traveler's wife and lover dead in the bedroom, and Traveler is holding the gun. The man murdered was the son of another detective. Traveler is convicted, found guilty, and imprisoned for life. Ransom's testimony helped get the conviction.

Though his boss wants him to go on leave, Ransom wants to keep working, especially due to a couple of strange new cases. His boss doesn't think they're connected; he does. He brings the details to Traveler as a way of reconnecting with him and also to keep him going while he's in prison. Traveler points out that the clues left at the scenes are from Sherlock Holmes stories. On the personal end, Ransom's marriage is over, and Traveler's daughter is attracted to him and wants a relationship.

This is a low budget film with parts probably filmed at a 19.99 per night LA motel. Some of the acting isn't very good, particularly from the actress who played Ransom's wife, and Peter Coyote's role should have been bigger to give the film a little gravitas. Weiss is good, sporting a long greasy haircut one might wear undercover, but he wasn't.

An interesting story, not a bad film given the cast and finances.

"Written in Blood" includes some good screenwriting which makes use of clues from the Sherlock Holmes detective stories left by a serial killer at the scene of the crime. Peter Coyote is the only recognizable name in the cast, and his character holds one of the keys to unlocking the mysteries of this grade-B yarn. The director's set-ups and some of the acting left a lot to be desired.

Still, the film is well-paced and entertaining, especially with those intriguing details from the stories of Sherlock Holmes. This movie is palatable if one is able to accept it for its clear intent of a made-for-television and very, very low-budget thriller.

When the wife of Detective John Traveller (Peter Coyote) and her lover are executed in bed and John takes the blame, his partner and friend, Detective Matthew Ransom (Michael T. Weiss), becomes very upset, affecting his marriage that was not working well. The lover of John's wife was the son of Luke Williams (Steve Rankin), a detective of the same department, and he does not accept the death of his son. After the trial and conviction of John, Matthew separates from his wife Mary Ramson (Nancy Valen), being sexually arrested by John's daughter Jude (Maureen Flanigan). Meanwhile, a serial killer kills the enemies of John, leaving clues in the crime scenes relatives to Sherlock Holmes tales and Matthew suspects of Jude. "Written in Blood" is a good low-budget contemporary Film-Noir. The story is great, but there is a lack of a previous development of the key elements of the plot, since the characters and their relations are disclosed along the story. This is the great flaw of the screenplay of a movie that deserves to be watched at least once. I would like to know the nationality of this film, which is not indicated in IMDb. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Escrito em Sangue" ("Written in Blood")