Evidence of Blood

This was done in the manner of Hitchcock. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen. I like that there was no car chases - no obsenities - no violence. I was at first put off by the title with the word blood, but once I saw it - I looked for it again and again. I wish it were available in DVD. I hope there are more like it.

I can see why some viewers might not get much out of this production. It is low budget, it is made for TV, it doesn't have a bankable performer, it doesn't have a car chase, not a shot is fired, nobody shouts at anyone else, there's very little blood and no violence, the courtroom scenes are there for exposition only and not drama, and we don't get to see Angelina Jolie nude.

What we have instead of a Hollywood blockbuster is a deliberately paced and complicated mystery that's sufficiently well done to deserve a good scrutiny on the part of people who make Hollywood blockbusters.

David Strathairn, a reliable actor, is a writer who returns to his home town to investigate a crime in which a man was executed for something he may or may not have done. The story emerges through the course of his investigation. Most of his informants are reluctant, if not downright hostile to his prying into this old affair. And the story really is complex, enough so that at times it is barely strong enough to carry the rest of this above-average flick. The crime, the subsequent trial, and related events come in snippets. Sometimes we don't know where a particular snippet fits and therefore why it's there in the first place. Stathairn's mother, we find out, was once tried for practicing medicine without a license in this rural benighted Alabama town. So what? He's supposed to be investigating a murder and here is his Mom on trial for performing magic tricks or something. A severe case of asthma seems to emerge out of nowhere to play an important part of the story. The ending pulls it all together, if you've managed to keep the characters and their motives straight, but it's rather a long haul.

But, especially considering the budget, the iconography could hardly be improved upon. The location looks right, whether it was filmed in Vancouver or not. (I suspect some of the interiors at least were shot in the studios in Wilmington, North Carolina.) In the flashbacks girls wear those ugly thick stocking that might have been common in Southern mountain communities forty years ago.

And for the most part the acting is far superior to what one might expect from such a venture. Man, these people have strong faces. Strathairn is no glamor boy, thank God. His shoulders slope down to nothingness, which is nice. And he doesn't miss a trick in his performance. Neither do most of the others, with the exception of a sheriff who comes across as a kind of mechanical stand in for the kind of human beings we can discern in the other characters. The elderly retired prosecutor, weeping with loss and guilt, never able to hold his own child, is a touching portrait rendered by a memorable actor. Mary McDonald is the kind of woman that every Hollywood sexpot should turn into if this were a good world. Her not-quite-pretty features are large and expressive. Her hair is a cowl of floppy deep blackish-red. And her voice -- what a voice! It is the soothing, understated voice of a concerned but somewhat distant shrink, with a bit of red-eye gravy in it. Her movements are smooth and languorous. She stretches luxuriantly, like an animal, without ever overdoing the sexuality she emanates. But she can turn up her instrument when the situation calls for it, from lento, say, to moderato, without ever screaming. (For an instructive contrast, it's interesting to watch "Witness for the Prosecution," probably a better film, in which the characters are engagingly hammy.)

The director handles all of these characters in their often-unrelated scenes as deftly as possible. He moves the bodies around efficiently. Nobody steps in front of anyone else. And the director's technique matches the leisure of the performances. No shock cuts. No stingers in the score or editing. A few touches stand out. Sometimes we see a reenactment of the crime taking place in Strathairn's imagination, from his point of view. In one of them, the victim, a young girl, is trapped in a most prickly looking leafless bush. The shot is all in grayish tones, almost black and white, except for a startling patch of bright green -- her dress, which is an important datum. At another point in the film, the writer is imagining the victim standing at the side of a hairpin turn on a country road. Like some other flashbacks, this one is tinted slightly yellow. (Better than shivering dissolve, no?) Again from his point of view, we see the girl in medium shot, flapping her arms with impatience, obviously waiting for someone or something, although we don't know who or what, until she stops shifting around, turns slowly and stares deliberately into the camera. It is, trust me on this, an extremely eerie moment. And done almost offhandedly, almost without effort.

Somewhere in the annals of court cases, we have gone from the slow approach of Perry Mason's time, to the quick, try'em and fry'em dramas of today. In such cases, audiences become privy to the horrid details which modern audiences eagerly hunger for today. In past eras, we were offered only superficial illegalities and dry bed room antics of stereotypical cardboard characters. It appears nostalgia is not dead. The film is called " Evidence in Blood " and it stars perhaps one of the most underrated actors of the day. David Strathairn aptly plays Jackson Kinley a Pulitzer prize winning author who's invited to witness a state execution. The case seems closed when he receives information his older brother has passed away. Returning home, he sifts through his brother's personal items and discovers a collection of odds and ends which puzzle him enough to began a new investigation. When Dora Overton (Mary McDonnell) the executed man's daughter visits him, she confesses she believes, her father was innocent of the murder and wrongly convicted. With a gnawing suspicion she may have been right, Kinley begins to uncover a growing collection of evidence of a massive conspiracy by towns-folks. Despite the danger, drama and subtle excitement, the writer realizes his own family's culpability, beginning with his law-enforcement brother, covering up something which he realizes too late. With Strathairn shoring up the brunt of the story, the film does not provide sufficient support for his efforts. As a result, the movie supports itself with good courtroom settings, flash-back images and complex conversations which if you miss any of it, will leave you guessing. Nevertheless, fans will appreciate David Strathairn's work which stands accordingly. ****

This is a small band of reviewers who have had the good fortune to experience this minor gem of a movie. I wasn't aware that this film was made for TV, so that was the first surprise. Further surprises followed as the film proceeded to develop into an absorbing and convincing melodrama. I can only agree with the other reviewers that this film scored very highly on most of the requirements of great entertainment. The acting was thoughtful, measured and very convincing. Was this because the actors were not "stars"? I would say absolutely so, because faces that are new to one do not distract from the thrust of the story, thus enhancing the sense of reality. The female lead, for me, managed to create one of the most erotic portrayals I have ever seen. She managed to smoulder without any apparent effort. Guess she's just a naturally sexy lady.

I just happened to turn this on and was very pleasantly surprised. The actors were understated if anything and the plot was very interesting. I came up with several solutions before the ending revealed I was so very wrong. Even Mary McC's accent wasn't too bad. Recommend it highly.