Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt

Paradise Police Chief "Skipper" Butler and Officer D'Angelo are investigating a fire at "The Point". But when they get there, it appears to be a false alarm.

Or is it?

Two people are dead, and be warned--their bodies look like something out of a horror movie.

The state arson investigators won't tell the town council anything. Town council members Hanson and Hasty show up at Stone's remote house--his phone is disconnected--to offer him his job back. Stone and the state investigator Healy are friends, so maybe he will have better luck.

Healy tells Stone what he needs to know and advises him to leave the investigating to the state cops. Since when has that ever stopped Stone? His next two actions are illegal and provide two of the film's best comic moments, the other being Hasty's bow-tie.

Stone suspects the murders were the result of Butler being corrupt (Wait: why will Butler let Stone take over his job, much less get away with investigating him? There's a very good reason). But he faces a number of obstacles. Molly quit. Rose quit and took her kids to her mother's in Toledo. Suitcase is working on his father's boat where he claims to be happy, but he's not convincing. Stone has no cell reception at his house. How will this man get anything done? Believe me, he will.

Stone hasn't talked to his ex-wife Jen since he lost his job, and he's drinking again; his dog seems to disapprove. He continues to visit Dr. Dix, and he is dating Thelma, who works at Hasty's car dealership and sings standards in a club. Stone also goes out with the pretty but tough Amanda, Gino Fish's secretary, but just for information.

A third person dies, and while it looks like suicide, Stone doesn't believe it.

The mystery has just enough twists, and the conclusion is exciting.

This is a movie that can be watched by those new to Jesse Stone. Unlike some of the others, this is a straight mystery which doesn't deviate into long philosophical scenes that some might find boring. And Stone's character history is explained for those who might not know it, but this is not really necessary for a newcomer to the series.

Tom Selleck does his usual good job--just remember, this is NOT "Blue Bloods" (which I've never seen, but commercials tell me enough). Stone is flawed in many ways but basically decent.

The other leading actors also do a good job. I wish Kathy Baker had had a bigger role, but for whatever reason she didn't have a lot of lines. Suitcase was also missed.

It's worth seeing, even more so than some of the recent entries in the series.

The latest Jesse Stone installment, Benefit of the Doubt, is yet another reminder that Jesse is a flawed character. Tom Selleck does such a great job with this character you find yourself justifying these flaws and rooting for him to overcome and serve justice at the same time. Robert B. Parker's vision for Jesse to continue to be flawed has remained intact even after the scripts wandered away from Parker's story line. The supporting cast, Kathy Baker, Kohl Sudduth, Stephen McHattie, William Sadler, Saul Rubinek, and William Devane all return to Paradise to as well. Great acting by Selleck, good writing, and the talented supporting cast preserve Parker's vision for Jesse Stone and hopefully give it life for yet another CBS movie.

This show starts out with a bang, literally. In a small, coastal town, two policemen die in a car bombing while out on a routine call. That certainly got my attention. Retired L.A. detective Jesse Stone is appointed to investigate. After that, the story wanders. We get to meet the various locals who live in the gloomy community with its rocky coast and gray weather, a place which has clearly seen better days. It's filled with cynical people one comes to expect in a movie like this. As expected, Stone (played well enough by Tom Sellink) asks questions of people, trying to find clues. As far as I could tell, but only finds little hints. In fact, the investigation doesn't go anywhere until the last half hour and the ending was very rushed. It also seems as if a sequel is being set up at the end.

Imagine that you and I could live our lives over again - or even a portion of them - and use the life lessons we have garnered, the hard way, to help ourselves and others. Police Chief Jesse Stone, portrayed by Tom Selleck, in the small Massachusetts town of Paradise, seizes such an opportunity. Divorce, alcoholism, murder, loyalty and betrayal, stupidity, false trust and false pride, dist integrating integrity, Stone has deposited lessons in some bank inside himself; and in these made-for-television modern morality plays, ironically, he is the right man in just the right place to help both himself and the small town.

Stone is no Ebenezer Scrooge. The ghosts that terrified him back in Los Angeles where he took to binge drinking and lost a high profile law enforcement job, are within his soul still, permanently goading and guiding him.

From 2005 through 2012, I watched, with increasing curiosity, involvement, and enthusiasm, as Tom Selleck and his cast maneuvered through five movies about Jesse Stone. Now, I have the distinct feeling that Selleck has assembled his favorite fellow actors to join in producing art and serious fun.

Thirty years ago, after "Magnum P.I.," Selleck is still refining and perfecting his acting skills. The actor who lost the Indiana Jones franchise to Harrison Ford, is selecting his vehicles carefully, systematically.

The dialog in the Stone movies is unusual, like the repartee one might overhear, by accident, between aged, battle-scarred warriors, or experienced EMT workers, in private, or out of ear shot, making ironic comments about life and love, death and destruction treating very serious subjects in a manner that sounds like light banter.

The Jesse Stone movies will not be for everyone's tastes. Its humor evolves out of people continually reminding themselves of how easily they could become corrupted or dead, the kind of humor that keeps characters and audiences on edge. Serious drama tipped just enough on edge to allow the audience to glimpse just a bit of Abbott and Costello or "Waiting for Gogot," reflecting on what well-intentioned but often self-deceiving creatures we human beings are.

Stone's drinking and womanizing somehow make him a sympathetic character where another actor might come across as a cad or pervert, a creep or monster. That is acting skill. This is Horation satire. It mocks and ridicules wrongs and weaknesses, but it is forgiving, unlike Juvenalian satire which is serious, grim, caustic and unforgiving, going straight for the jugular.

Selleck and cast treat even gruesome death with the dark humor MASH surgeons use to keep their sanity as they continually patch up wounded soldiers sending them back again and again to try to kill other human beings.

Some of the wittiest repartee since the 1980's "Equalizer" starred Edward Woodward and Robert Lansing, shows the verbal counter punching skills of Selleck and McHattie.

This movie may appeal to students of successful failures. It may even appeal to people who believe in atonement and forgiveness, reformation and redemption.

The movie manages to evoke an almost Vaudevillian humor out of events which in reality might feel like distilled sorrow or overwhelming grief.

Devane, shrink, ex-cop and almost ex-drinker, is a reflector for Stone's struggles and misadventures with both women and the bottle, and their interludes are played both for serious intent and droll comedy, as men, as lovers, as drinkers, and as human beings struggling to help themselves and others.

Aristotle said that a memorable character is (a) true to life (b) true to type and (c) true to self. The Stone movies turn the first two definitions on their heads a bit, but we know that it takes all kinds to make a world. Being true to oneself entails continual contemplation and application of the Serenity Prayer.

When two police officers are blown up in a police car while investigating a fire, Jesse Stone is brought back as the Chief of Police. The town council fired him; they now re-hire him, as one of the men on the council's son-in-law was one of the cops.

Jesse breaks into his old office, where there is no staff and no action. He calls Rose (Kathy Baker) who is staying with her mother; she says she'll think about it. Suitcase decides to stay away as well.

Jesse works to sort through what little he has: money in the trunk of the police car is but one. He speaks with his various sources: his analyst (William Devane), a Massachusetts State Patrol Captain (Stephen McHattie) a Mob kingpin (William Sandler), and the felonious Hasty (Saul Rubinek), now out of prison.

Were the cops dirty? Who made the call to bring them to the site? Can Jesse keep from drinking his way through the case? Will Rose and Suitcase ever return?

Somehow these characters grow on one. I still think Selleck is too one-note and depressed, though this script had a little humor in it. Still, people enjoy the show, and that's what counts.