1st to Die

An okay thriller. Not great. Not good, really, just okay. Based on the cheesily provocative novel by James Patterson, this three-hour movie event brought to you by the peacock network is about a women's coffee-klatsch trying to bust a serial killer who preys on newlyweds. This klatsch includes a very competent Tracy Pollan (L & O; SVU), the great Pam Grier (Jackie Brown), perky and pretty Carly Pope (Orange County) and veteran TV HITG Megan Gallagher (Hill Street Blues, Larry Sanders, and everything in between). Their chief suspect is a highly desirable undesirable named Nicholas Jenks (Robert Patrick of X-Files). Some of the good things about this movie: Carly Pope's imitation of a skank, Mitch Pileggi (X-Files) showing off his leg (Grazie!), Eddie, the flower delivery boy, the saucy vintner ("His restaurants are terrible!"), the Cleveland wedding spectacle, Pam Grier and, yes, Robert Patrick. I wish the movie could have just been Robert Patrick and Pam Grier. Here's an idea for a series: he's a crook in L.A. who's been flipped by the Feds, she's a no-nonsense Fibbie assigned to be his handler as he skulks the underbelly of the City of Angels, snitching... Ah, where was I? Right. The bad things about this movie: the romance between Gil Bellows (The Agency) and Pollan, the "You go, girl!" attitude of the Murder Club, Pileggi's mustache, Patrick's earring, the plot, the ending, the cheesy CSI effects and Gil Bellows. O, Gil! You were so fine in Love and a 45 and now DEK's gone and crushed your finesse under his well-manicured thumb. Damn you, DEK! Damn you to hell! Ahem. Michael O'Hara (Murder in the Heartland) does a fair job adapting a poor novel into something somewhat entertaining and wisely changes the ending. It's not the ending I would have wanted but it was a hell of a lot better than Patterson's original idea. Russell Mulcahy, meanwhile, is wise to return to his beloved genre of Scots & SciFi (The Highlander: The Source) after this so-so effort. Not even Sean Young's violent death or Angie Everhart's breasts could save this movie from mediocrity. Now, about that series...

One might actually enjoy '1ST TO DIE' as it probably makes good background chatter during a bout of house-cleaning or roof-repair.

Only half of the principal characters are well-played. Gil Bellows, Megan Gallagher and Mitch Pileggi deserve some applause for their efforts. However, the rest of the cast play their characters either over-the-top or with the enthusiasm of a grape. The scenes with Tracy Polan (shrill) and Carly Pope (tedious) are so awful as to be beyond any credibility - the worn-out dialog can only be blamed for so much. 'The Women's Murder Club' scenes are so poorly conceived, that the entire idea falls flat early on. And what can one say about Pam Grier?

The film is a full 160 minutes long, the last twenty encompassing every tiresome twist one has come to expect. A wonderful example of truly awful writing.

My wife wanted me to get this off Netflix on a recommendation.

Immediately I had a feeling it had been a TV movie. This must have been a very tedious experience watching this weak movie with commercials! Plus it was rate R for some reason. Why if it was on network TV?

Only Robert Patrick does a reasonable job as the villain. Even the reliable Pam Grier couldn't bring much to her role as the coroner. Tracy Pollan is really a subpar actress. Only the slight plot twists made this any small reason to waste 2 and half hours viewing this. Mitch Pileggi was very credible and Gil Bellows very disappointing. Don't was any time on this movie. There are so many other good movies to rent or purchase.

To me there's really only one thing a filmmaker/writer should never ever do. They can use all sorts of little cheats and suspend the laws of physics for stylistic effect as much as they want, but when they use those same cheats to resolve the main mystery of the plot, then that's just too stupid. To avoid giving too much detail I'll use a hypothetical example: Suppose you're watching a suspense film and the heroine is up against the wall with killers all around her. They're armed, she isn't. She has no help and no way out, and the situation has been tensely evolving to this point for two hours. Then she just magically turns invisible and flies away with no explanation for how, when, or why she suddenly developed the ability to fly and turn invisible. The end. Good film? No. A terrible cheat. And 1st To Die is just that way. The plot's mystery is resolved by a sudden revelation that someone can do something that's impossible. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.

Any idiot can write a good mystery if you don't have to explain how it worked within the laws of physics. Imagine the old "locked room mystery" where the victim has been killed in a room that has been locked from the inside, so how did the killer do it? If the answer is that the killer suddenly developed the ability to pass through brick walls without disturbing them, then it's not a very good mystery, is it?

I read the book 1st to Die a few months ago and I really enjoyed it. When I heard a movie was being made about the book I wasn't quite sure what to think, usually movies are totally different from the book. I have to admit 1st to Die was pretty much like the book. Of course there were a few changes made but basically the movie tends to stick closely to the book. The movie was good. If you're a Patterson fan I recommend it and even if you're not. It's a good thriller.