Exiled

just want to say a friend of mine gave me the website to profaci(john fiore 's new movie johnny slade's greatest hits. www.johnnyslade.net it brought back all the old feeling i had for the character

this movie and fiore in particular was a riot...its being released soon i hear. it reminded me of how good a character profaci was and what a shame it was to see him so dissed by the egomaniac NOTH...

when i watch things ,i root for the underdogs like profaci. i watch the smaller players and study them...like a lot of L&O freaks ,i dug the guy. with all the recycles..why hasn't wolf brought him back?

exiled was profaci's best and last moments on the show. here's to you profaci.. cheers

I've been a Chris Noth Fan for a long time, and was very upset when he left LAW & ORDER. Mike Logan was a quirky, individualistic character who always left you wanting more. What a treat that Mr. Noth and co-writer Charles Kipps finally told us what happened to Logan after he was banished to Staten Island. In addition to being an enjoyable, fast moving mystery, there was always the underlying angst of Logan's boredom. I'm reminded of the phrase "Be Careful What You Wish For...You May Get It." Logan got what he wished for: He returned to the 2-7, and the Homicide work that he loved, only to find out that you can't go back again.

I'd enjoy seeing a sequel, to find out how the character resolves this.

Good Work, Chris Noth!

All right, all right, I was ecstatic as the next L&O junkie when I heard that Chris Noth would reprise his role as Mike Logan. I looked forward to this movie for months, lying to every friend, family member, and creditor I have that I was absolutely, positively, unavailable that particular Sunday night. I even told my roommate that he was going to have to live without the X-Files for 1 week.

Mulder and Scully, you never looked so good.

It wasn't that this was a bad movie. It's that it took the easy way out in many cases, which is something Law and Order never does. It was a paint-by-numbers cop drama, and didn't try to be anything else.

I won't spoil the plot by pointing out the various pointless twists--let's just say that anyone with a nodding familiarity with the genre will see the ending a mile away. What really struck me was how hard the writers were trying to make this a "one-lone-cop-against-the-bureaucracy" story.

That might have worked with brand new characters, but we've all watched Mike Logan, Lennie Briscoe, Anita Van Buren, and Jack McCoy for years. We know how they're going to react to situations and to each other. Logan's difficulties with McCoy in this film are plausible--they were never all that friendly during their one year together. But his confrontation with Briscoe seems forced, and the mutual animosity with Van Buren is way out of left field. Logan risked his career for her at one point--over Briscoe's objections. So how exactly does she label him "self-absorbed"?

All in all, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The characters and the actors both deserved better.

I admit, having two hours to kill on a winter afternoon puts you in the mood to curl up with a blanket and watch a good crime drama. "Exiled" has its high points, but unless you're an enormous fan of Mike Logan (and I know lots of people that are) this one isn't going to tempt your taste buds much. It follows his "exile" from Manhattan to the outer district, and his attempt through a homicide case to get back into the big leagues, with run-ins with former associates along the way.

Having seen many, many L&O episodes, enough to know the characters pretty well, I felt a lot of them were spot on. Logan's relationship with Lennie seemed plausible after the time the two spent together. I also wasn't nearly as disapproving of his scene with McCoy as others have been -- I felt Jack was the same as usual, a little frustrated with being bullied and not terribly pleased to see Logan again. The hatred Van Buren seemed to have for him was off, but I have to say the bright moments in the script are woven between the regular L&O gang (namely Lennie and Jack's three and a half minute appearance in a mental arm wrestle against Logan's demands that a task force be put into place to solve a crime) and the sadder situations ... a scene close to the end dealing with the crooked cop angle.

It wasn't a total waste of time, but nothing I would go to any lengths to see again.

Law & Order fans will appreciate the return of Chris Noth to the setting, and also the slightly longer look at New York City, which obviously cannot be caught in the pacing of a regular episode. The film does seem to attempt to crowd in a few too many Law & Order characters from the period and the years previous to it, and sometimes the pacing is a little slow. Dana Eskelson is adorable as a Logan's partner, a detective who grew up around the Uzielli crime family, and takes this and her status as a woman on the force to mean she has something to prove. Ice-T is hilarious as an absurdly named pimp, but Nicole Ari Parker's performance as victim's sister and Logan's love interest is lackluster and unconvincing. All in all, this movie is not a waste of your time, if you are a Law & Order junkie like the rest of us.