Jesse Stone: L'empreinte du passé

A good thriller, just like the rest of the them.

Tom Selleck is great as always.

Selleck does not get enough credit for this series.

On the one hand this whole series can be dismissed as the efforts of yet one more "older" actor to keep stirring the pot, to stay in the game, and at the same time get to play in his favorite sandbox on the planet (Nova Scotia, standing in for Maine).

But if you dig deeper and consider the series as a whole what you find is remarkable control, and craftsmanship.

The same people appear in every movie, both in front of and behind the camera. Ignoring the regional Canadian accents, they are not bad.

Selleck is brilliant. Stone could be the best work of his career. He has trumped Clint Eastwood in his mastery of the two-word piece of dialog. He stands a fragile but unwavering force for law enforcement. There is minimal violence or action in these entries but they hold interest nonetheless.

And that damn dog with the stoic face steals every scene he is in.

The other review "Being a longtime mystery lover, but never having read Robert B. Parker or seen a Jesse Stone movie, I really looked forward to watching Sea Change. But it was almost a complete disappointment. First, the principal characters have been given colorful histories or eccentricities seemingly only to keep them from being completely uninteresting otherwise or to fill time (for example, Luthor's post-coma extrasensory power). Why does anyone have his or her peculiarities? Dude please you have never read Robert B Parker and you a mystery lover. Get off with more jokes. To claim and be a mystery lover and not have read Robert Parker is like being a Christian and not reading the Bible. You comments. The beauty of parker is the eccentricities of the characters.

This is a great movie listen to someone who really reads and loves mystery books not this guy. Watch this movie and watch the entire series they are excellent but for the intelligent viewer only. Much goes on so unlike action movies to really enjoy you must watch the movie. Not boring ,,, just the opposite excellent. jp

If some archaeologist is digging around some 200 years from now and happens upon a copy of this film I only hope he's able to find a DVD player that will play it. Sea Change is that good! And unlike the usual junk passing for cinema these days this movie (and others in the series) displays a range of talent that will speak well of the 21st Century movie industry. Wonderful writing, wonderful directing, wonderful acting, wonderful sound track! But perhaps most impressive of all is the photography. In fact as a professional photographer specializing in landscape stills I was time and time again blown away by the powerful composition of the scenes, the originality of the camera work, the blending of subtle tone and color. As masterful piece of cinema-photography as I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing and memories of the most powerful shots shall inform my own work for years to come.

Robert Parker, like novelist Georges Simenon, was a master of his craft. Both men knew how to say just enough, and no more, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. Parker's books are really acts of collaboration between writer and reader. It is rare for a film to capture the spirit of the book it sprang from, and rarer still for the film to be faithful to the writer's method. The Jesse Stone films are the wonderful exception. They are true to the books, and faithful to Parker's lean, spare style. Less is always more, like a Japanese line drawing. These films are beautifully crafted little gems. High marks to all who had a hand in their production.