Thin Air

It would be ridiculous to comment on the realism of this movie. In real life private detectives seldom get involved in exciting cases. The genre exists because we all love the idea of the knight errant who operates with a strict code of honor. Enjoying this movie requires suspension of disbelief. That done, it is quite good. Mantegna is the personification of Spenser. He speaks his wise cracks as if he were improvising them. So what if the plot is over the top? The movie is as much fun as the books and that should be all that matters.

I found this made for TV movie with too many ridiculous scenes. A police detective's wife is kidnapped, and he later asks ex-cop, now private investigator [Spenser] to investigate, and find his wife.

In one scene, the detective responds to a 911 call where Spenser is force to shoot a man that had threatened his girlfriend with a knife. Upon arriving, the detective seems to have a condescending and unfriendly attitude towards Spenser.

The detective who is later laid in a hospital bed after being shot by the kidnapper, tells Spenser to find the shooter and waste him. This scene does not make sense as do others that follow, which I will not get into so as not to spoil it for those who want to see this drama of a movie. It's as if the script was rushed without proper technical advice, or scenes just made up as they went along. For those who do see this movie, I'm sure many will agree with my critique.

I love Joe Mantegna and I love crime/thriller movies. But this one sucked! It's a slow moving predictable film. The idea was dumb. The story was dumb. Much of the dialogue was dumb. The title was even dumb. Into "thin air?" What "thin air?" We knew where Lisa, the kidnapped woman, was and who she was with the whole time. No mystery there. Should have been an exciting thriller, but it wasn't.

Good day, having read all of Robert B Parker's works, I was dismayed to learn of the casting of this movie and appalled when I actually saw it.

Not to be unkind to the two stars, Joe Mantegna, who is a fine actor and I saw him on Broadway years ago, however, he fits the description of Spencer, like I am taking a space shuttle ride. Mr. Mantegna, is too out of shape and frankly a little to tubby to play the role of a jock former boxer turned P. I. who works out on a daily basis! Like Ms. Harden, he doesn't do humor well. After all, more than once, one of Spencer's nemesis says, "your not half as funny as you think". This is true for this production only it wasn't meant the way the original remark was meant.

To a lessor degree I think the same of Ms. Harden. She is a great actress, but her acting was flat and frankly boring. She also is not the extremely glamorous Dr. Susan Silverman, as described by Mr. Parker's books. She is supposed to. Look like Rita Hayworth, yet brainy and funny. The lines were delivered as if she was a waitress reading the daily specials. There also is supposed to be a humorous edge to Dr. Silverman, Ms Harden's glib attempt at humor was awful.

The sad part about all of this is that Mr. Parker has repeatedly complained, to a mutual friend that he was never happy with he casting, the scripts or plot development of the original series. Yet, he wrote the screen play, produced this and therefore had in put in the casting! I think he should stick to writing great books and leave the movie casting and screen writing to someone else.

This is the second adaptation by Parker with this cast of one of his Spenser books. The story is true to the book. The relationships between Spenser and Frank Belson are true to the context of the Spenser book series. The Boston police want to have nothing to do with private detectives, especially an ex-cop fired for insubordination who skates the edge of the law too frequently. Sometimes, though, being within the law has too many restrictions. When Belson's wife is kidnapped, Spenser investigates and finds things are not what they seem.

Mantegna is not nearly as pretty as Robert Urich of the old tv show, but much truer to the character of the pages of the books in thoughts, looks, and deeds. The supporting cast with Marcia Gay Harden as Susan Silverman is also good. Fans of the Spenser books will be pleased. I cannot wait for the next adaptation (I have heard there will be six).