Concrete Canyons

When ex-sheriff and expert tracker Ben Sloan learns his estranged son is wanted for murder he travels to the concrete canyons of Chicago to help. He wins the grudging support of detective Susan Kincaid, meets his son's wife and child and pursues the evidence to find the true killers.

It's the kind of low budget production where no cliché is left unturned but everyone delivers a decent performance. It seems a little underwritten towards the end and never delivers the physical edge that is hinted at but maybe they had to tone it down for midweek afternoon consumption and lost their way a little bit.

Overall, a watch-able little TV movie. Indeed, if they wanted to run a few more stories with Scott Patterson and Polly Shannon as the ex-sheriff and detective respectively I'd probably watch them.

Great script and decent acting. Retired sheriff Sloane is a badass and has been out of touch with his son for three years. His son is accused of murder so he goes to Chicago to track him down. He does his own investigation and runs into trouble with the local police. There is a lot more this which makes it interesting, but don't want to spoil the movie.

For starters, the acting in this seems pretty good. I rarely blame the actors in these movies as it's not their fault -- they're just doing a gig. Anyhow, Showcase has been playing these terrible movies shot in Vancouver at least twice a week lately (gaaaahhd!) You would think these made-for-TV movies were written by 12 year old boys. There's so many clichés like when this guy Sloan (what an original macho name, isn't it, and he wears a cowboy hat and jean jacket) arrives in Chicago (yes, he even wears the hat and jacket in the city), which judging by the drizzle is actually Vancouver no doubt, he goes to the police station and this sort of pretty detective woman (when are police detectives female and pretty -- btw, her name is Kincaid, as in Ruben Kinkaid, manager of the Partridge Family, another original name) says to him right off the top, some cliché like "This is Chicago, Sloan, go back ^&%ing sheep in the Andes". Obviously she doesn't say exactly that but you get the idea, it's like one of these 'This is the big city Sloan, you're not back in rural Vancouver'. I'm not going to waste my time watching the rest of it because I'm pretty sure I know what happens -- she'll start getting impressed by his tracker skills and they'll do the nasty etc. etc. Waste your time watching it but don't say you weren't warned.

Cookie cutter movie. Standard ex-sheriff haunted by the past drowing in a bottle. The storyline isn't horrible and with a better actress, the movie might have been decent.

Good background noise while wrapping gifts, but OMG, the detective's (Kincaid) acting is so forced and fake that it's like nails on a chalkboard. She tries to come off as authorative, but it doesn't work AT ALL! Her lines are ridiculous.

Great that the detective is a woman, bad that they make her character so dumb. So tired of cop shows making the female detectives out to be clueless so they can be rescued by the manly hero.

Ok let me state that my rating was based on the summary alone. I wanted to watch this movie, so I went to the summary to learn more about it. But after getting a brain cramp from trying to read the summary, I realized that I couldn't understand what I was reading! I mean, was there no one who had the job of reading the summary to correct all the errors?!! I can understand a few typos, but this thing was totally jacked up! Sorry, guys, but I tried!!!