Detective

not a bad movie. just not a good one. it is tolerable, the kind of movie you will end up watching if you are sick in bed and can't find the remote. it's a "movie of the week" paced like a mini-series event scheduled during sweeps. Tom Berenger is good (as he always is) and Cybill Shepherd is, well, Cybill Shepherd. Annabeth Gish is totally wasted. She seems to actually be absent through most of her performance except for the occasional shrill outburst towards the end. You can't really blame the actors because the real flaw is the story line and script: back-to-back pointless and clichéd conversations that do nothing to move the plot along.

Being a Tom Berenger fan for many years, I purchased the DVD and enjoyed this "made from TV" movie a lot. Tom can play any role and was excellent as the conflicted man faced with ethical and personal problems. Scenes with Cybill Shepard and the marriage counselor rang true to me, as did those involving the priest-detective dilemma of this man's life. There was more to ponder in the story than just the murder mystery. The supporting cast, overall, was well chosen and the performances satisfying. This was one of those motion picture treatmentsof a novel which caused me to make plans to read Arthur Hailey's book. All in all, my impression of this movie is positive and I hope that you, the reader of this review, will give it a try.

As usual with many movies, the "Sound Engineers" on this film should never work again. There was "background music and sound effects" where none should be and it was much too loud covering up the actors.

This movie reminds me of the reports I'd write in college that had to be ten pages on a subject I did not even remotely care about. The result was always 2 pages of substance with 8 pages of rambling crap that added absolutely no value to the final product. Was I a poor student? Yes, and I have the attention span of a hummingbird on crack so maybe I'm missing something here. It's 8:58pm where I'm at right now, and I swear this thing started six hours ago (no control over the TV). I glance up once in awhile to see another pointless conversation with some more cliché dialog. The actors aren't bad - they just have nowhere to go. It's a one hour episode of a cookie cutter crime show that's been stretched out like a Caramello. There should be an "end now" feature on modern cable systems that allows viewers to instantly turn any slow snore-fest into a disaster movie. Hit the blue button and in flashes an asteroid. Hit green and out comes a lava flow. Aliens on red. For now, I guess I'm stuck with the +/- option on my channel control - not that I have any control.

Another Tom Berenger special, this time courtesy of Hallmark. For some reason they have two TV stars in supporting roles: Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Boxleitner.

There wasn't enough content to stretch to three hours, but it's three hours.

I believe the main story is the detective and his messy private life. Malcolm (Berenger) is an ex-priest, separated from his wife, and his detective girlfriend is a councilman's daughter.

However, we never find out about his life in the priesthood, any guilt he may have about that and shacking up with someone else while he's in marriage counseling, or any angst over the fact that his son is angry with him.

Instead he concentrates on the vicious serial killings in the LA area. I suppose Hailey made the character an ex-priest so he could recognize signs at the crime scenes from the Book of Revelations.

All this added up to not much. The serial killings were gross beyond belief as were the suspects. In the end, you really didn't care about any of it.