Homicide: The Movie

"Homicide: The Movie" is a TV flick which continues the defunct TV series and, given its less than sterling reviews, probably concludes it as well. The film, which tells of the investigation of a shooting of a Baltimore mayoral candidate who also heads the homicide squad (Kotto), pulls together most of the cast of the successful 1993-1999 TV series with reprises from many including cameos from the dead characters. "Homicide: The Movie" requires such a familiarity with the TV series for a complete understanding of the characters' background and history that familiarity with the series is almost a prerequisite for the film. Furthermore, as a stand alone piece, the film just isn't that good. "Homicide:The Movie" will play best as a farewell to loyal viewers of "Homicide:Life in the Streets". (B-)

I was a big fan of Homicide: Life on the Street which remains one of the television shows I've most enjoyed watching. The last two seasons do colour my impression somewhat but I usually like to remember the good times of the first five seasons.

Homicide: The Movie is definitely in the mold of the last two seasons in that it's good but the magic is missing, the movie is a pretty good effort all the same though. Pembleton is back to his old self and old favourites Brody and Detective Howard are back, although their input is minimal. I liked spotting actors from the HBO show "Oz" (not coincidentally this movie was co-written by Oz creator Tom Fontana).

Homicide: The Movie is worth watching but it's not great, eg. I didn't bother burning a copy of the rental DVD, I'd rather hold out for a DVD boxset which I'll probably have to import from overseas. The story is fairly interesting but still isn't up to the standard of the early days of the show, the presentation is very "TV movie" but we can hardly knock that given its source material. The writers went for Bayliss/Pembleton as the main dynamic which is reassuring, but again the magic is never quite recaptured.

Homcide: The Movie ends up being a fitting end to the unfortunately downward trend of the TV series. It was good to see all the characters back but it ends up being yet another installment of Homicide that doesn't live up to the show's brilliant first five seasons. It was a good effort though.

Homicide:The Movie reunites the principal leads of the original show eight years after the events of the last episode occurred. The story revolves around former Homicide Captain Al "G" Giardello, who is running for mayor, and who is shot at a political rally. The next two hours involves the search for the assailant and it has some interesting moments, such as a brilliant scene between Bayliss and Pembleton, along with great acting and directing. The only real flaw here is the script, which brings back all these characters, but hardly gives most of them anything to do. The show's more interesting characters, such as Munch and Lewis, are given minimal screen time, while the supporting characters are given even less. However, if you enjoyed this show when it aired, you might want to take a look at Homicide:The Movie.

In the UK Channel 4 used to show Homicide but gave up on the whole project about four years ago and never showed series 7 or the movie. Now, thanks to the Hallmark Channel, UK viewers have had a chance to see the whole series from beginning to end and the final movie.

To me, the movie doesn't really work. The story is just an excuse to bring the characters back together and frankly misfires a little, having one of the show's best, Giardello, out cold for most of its length and unable to interact with anyone. I was also a little uncomfortable with the appearance of Adina Watson, given that the case was based on a real life tragedy. Still, it was nice to see Jon Polito and Daniel Baldwin back from the dead.

Season 7 turned out to be far better than I was expecting, having read some fairly awful things about it on the internet. The final episode wrapped things up beautifully, mirroring and reversing the events of the very first as Tim Bayliss packed his things and quietly walked out of the Unit. The movie just wasn't needed.

Out on the campaign trail for Mayor, Giardello gets shot twice and taken to hospital. His shooting could be enemies from his previous post or could be drug related as he pledged to legalise drugs to take it off the streets. The shooting brings the homicide detectives out in force – both present and past to try and piece together the clues and find out who it was and why.

Thanks to the UK's Channel 4's policy of not knowing a good thing when they've bought the rights to it, I have not seen the last series of H:LOTS, simply because they decided that it wasn't getting enough viewers and dropped it. So I don't know how directly this follows on from the TV series in terms of time but I know that it does tie in quite well and close some open questions. The plot is quite simple and lacks the class of the tv series but still works well for what it has to do. Some of the plot is a jump too far but it still works on the whole. The side issues are as interesting as the main plot and the close of the film is actually a lot more moving than I expected it to be.

The main problem the film has is that `every detective is back'. The result of this is that fans get to see characters they haven't seen for years, but the downside is that they are mostly just clutter – wheeled in to say a few lines and then disappear. The film is at it's strongest when it focuses on good subplots with the strongest characters – hence it is at it's best when Pembleton and Bayliss are the focus. It is still good to see all the faces but at times you wonder why they bothered and why they didn't sacrifice some characters to make for a tighter narrative.

The cast all do well, with Braugher and Secor standing out due to the amount of time and material the film allows them to have. The cameos (although a lot of the cast could be called cameos) are mixed. Priestley and Begley Jnr are a bit of a waste of space but Oz's Walker gives a delicate performance and shows his skill in this media yet again.

Overall I had no great hopes for this film as it is basically a TVM, but I did enjoy it more than I thought. The revolving door of old characters does drag a little at times but the film works and the focus on a group of main characters (Pembleton and Bayliss in particular) works to it's strength and produces a film that, while not comparable to the series in terms of quality, will satisfy many of it's fans.