Une Proie Certaine

Painful. One of the worst screenplays ever written. The acting is not much better. The entire film is a caricature, an excruciating attempt at modern film noir that fails from the opening frames.

From the cheesy, Sam Spade-esque voice-overs, to the excessively cliché dialog, to the ridiculous costumes (the deputy police chief wears panty hose over his head while breaking and entering, as does the assassin.)

Once you understand you're watching a terrible movie, you can almost laugh at how awful everything is. Honestly, this should have been a comedy.

Unless you enjoy pain, this is an easy pass.

I have read all of the Prey novels and am a big fan. I have been a Mark Harmon fan for years. I was thrilled to hear he would be playing Davenport and he did a pretty terrific job....if he'll lose the narration next time out.

But the casting? OMG, who did the casting? Carmel was a joke. The actress simply can't act. Rinker was good but Marcy? Hell, no! That has to be the worst casting this decade. Marcy is a tough as nails broad and not a bimbo.

Let's get some real casting next time around. Actors who are really worth the wait for the next Prey installment.

I came across this pretty much by accident. I don't get the channel that made this TV movie, and as a huge fan of Davenport/Sandford, I eventually went to great lengths to get a copy. By then I had seen the reviews and pictures here and they had lowered my expectations. In fact, I even waited a couple of weeks to view it. I think many of the complaints of this film come from the unmistakable fact that a TV movie will never be better than a Sandford novel, and even more so for an audience that enjoys reading.

I also think this is one of the real strengths of this film. Mark Harmon and company didn't try to give us our vision of Davenport, he gave us his. All of the characters in the film represent an image that is similar to the book series, but also unique, and the villains are exceptionally well played. In the end, it works well and stands on its own merits. I really enjoyed this TV version of Sandford and hope there are more. This is good TV.

After what was a disappointing start, Certain Prey settled into a comfortable watch for the evening. The initial acting was stiff and apart from Mark Harmon and Lola Glaudini, the cast were generally underwhelming. The script improved as the movie progressed and thankfully the plot in which 2 women commit a series of murders was better than expected. The only thing I truly disliked was the narrative by Harmon during the movie which explained too much from the book. It was uneccessarily distracting and quite annoying. All in all I'm glad I tuned in to watch Harmon in something other than NCIS.

I find myself agreeing with some of the other reviews in that this is a decent enough adaptation of the tenth of John Sandford (John Camp's) novels and as such it attempts to try and interlace a lot of storyline into the video that fans of the books will understand. It is about as good a job of the gritty storyline that you'll be able to find on commercial TV. Sandford writes some excellent, gripping and gruesome stories more suited for cable or the big screen ...which is really where I would enjoy seeing more of his fine work. Harmon did fair but like others I found him wanting. Davenport is a big, tough and mean character that the bad guys are truly afraid of for good reason. An ex hockey player well over 6' with a brooding character that women love. Harmon isn't the right choice although I liked his effort. A much better choice would have been Russell Crowe, Ray Liotta or Nick Nolte. The two lead women did a great job pulling off the roles of Carmen and Clara but for the buxom Marcy a far better choice would have been the beautiful and moody Jennifer Connelly. Granted, my cast would have driven the costs of this up a lot ...probably far more than any made for TV effort. Hey guys, don't knock it. Any Sandford book that makes it to the screen is worth watching. Maybe not as good as they could have been but...