Columbo: Murder with Too Many Notes

I am a HUGE Columbo fan.. My trusty Tivo has become my best friend, and I never miss an episode! I don't want to criticize a Columbo, for fear that Peter Falk will read the comments and decide it's time to put the old detective away..

But, I've gotta say - out of the long list of episodes I've seen, this is by far the most disappointing. Not only was it very unrealistic - the forensics (for a 2000 movie) were very out of date, but the plot [the ending specifically] left us dangling.

I didn't even realize it was over! When he confessed and joked about prison, we were like "huh?? what happened?? why would he confess??".. Columbo is a brilliant detective, and this one sold him short.

I know future episodes will make up for it.. [hint hint].. he's not ready to be put down.. I hope if the powers that be read this, they will realize that Columbo has a lot of life left in him, but I hope they also choose scripts that really are his traditional style: the Columbo style we've grown to love.

For this episode specifically, definitely not the best.. but if you're a Columbo junkie, definitely worth a watch - even a bad Columbo makes you smile. =)

I have to agree with everything that's been written about this episode - it's a bomb. Not THE BOMB, a BOMB.

The story wasn't bad, but as has been pointed out, too much went unexplained. The drive to the killer's house - Columbo running out of gas - what was all that about? I think Columbo was trying to rattle the guy or get him to lose his temper. We don't know though.

Obvious filler to stretch the episode was the "Name that Tune" with the orchestra. Embarrassing.

The denouement - were they kidding? Where was the evidence?

Very disappointing. Obviously, a slapped-together episode because the name "Columbo" meant ratings - they figured the audience would watch anything with Peter Falk as Columbo. They were right. But it was insulting.

The murder plot is actually pretty ingenious, and the murderer, actor Billy Connoly, is quite interesting as Columbo's foil. But the writing is dreadful, as it leaves tons of stuff unexplained and puts in tons of stuff for no seeming purpose or connection to the plot. Early on, when Columbo drives the killer home in an endlessly long scene, it is obviously for some purpose, but that purpose is never explained. An extended focus on a certain aspect of the victim's clothing is likewise endlessly extended, but leaves it very unclear as to what Columbo is seeking to prove with it. Finally, in the final scene, he re-enacts the murder in a staged childlike manner, bringing up issues that seemingly have no connection to his proof, and offers a final "proof" that is one of the least convincing in Columbo history, yet the murderer smilingly gives up w/o any argument. And the final big clue is obtained after the medical examiner overlooked an obvious piece of evidence that would have cost any ME his job. What is most frustrating is that for long stretches of this movie, it is actually highly enjoyable, and with the fine acting of the murderer and the directing of the great Columbo contributor Patrick McGoohan, it could easily have been turned into a dandy episode, if only the writing was at more than a B-movie level.

The decent assembling of Billy Connelly as the murderer and Patrick McGoohan behind the camera, merely compounds the disappointment of this largely unsatisfying, lukewarm 1999 Columbo TV movie, which sees Connelly play a highly-respected Hollywood composer who is forced to murder the dissatisfied understudy he has used to saved his flagging career.

Strongly enough plotted; a rather good platform is established in the early stages, but the momentum is barely maintained simply because the supporting clues are patchy in nature and moreover, the screen chemistry between Falk and Connelly is decidedly hit-and-miss; in fact Connelly's portrayal struggles to make an decent impact as he seems to be caught between a serious and a comedic interpretation of his character.

The finale is also on the bizarre side and is staged at the murder scene on top of a building: Columbo's evidence is not particularly overwhelming and Connelly's character more or less turns round and gives himself up. Also, in an odd error of fact, Columbo asks the deceased's partner to teach him to play Columbo's trademark song "this old man" on the piano, but he says that it is something that his wife hums; when we know that it is actually him who usually whistles the song.

A largely disappointing effort, which stands to date, as the penultimate Columbo adventure in its history and one that will not be recalled in a positive light.

The Columbo series, starring Peter Falk in his famous role as Lt. Columbo, first started off in 1968 with the movie "Prescription: Murder". Five decades later the first 21th century Columbo movie got released. It's a known fact that all later Columbo movies are not as good- and lack the charm and simplicity of the earlier Columbo movies, from mostly the '70's. Unfortunately this movie also suffers from this.

Like basically every 'weaker' Columbo movie entry, the introduction takes far too long. The movie is only about 98 minutes short but it isn't until about halve an hour into the movie. It of course is only also after that, that Lt. Columbo first shows up.

It's extra disappointing that this movie isn't among the best Columbo entries since it got directed by Patrick McGoohan. He directed more Columbo movies, prior to this one and his movies always had a certain bit of extra style, which made the movies rise above the level of average. He also had some misses in his 'Columbo-directing career' though and this movie is among one of those misses.

Problem is that the story is really not that interesting. It really isn't a very exciting murder-mystery movie to watch. It's way too slowly progressing and besides, the reason why the murder gets committed seemed quite dodgy to me. Come on, why does he kill the boy? Was he really such a big treat to him or his career? He still had his reputation in his advantage after all. Why risk so much? It above all is also a quite poorly executed murder. It's done needlessly complicated and left for too many traces at the same time. That alone is also already a real accomplishment. Yet Lt. Columbo at first doesn't pay attention to the most obvious clues as well (the pieces of glass in the hand, the tox screen, etcetera). Seriously, that's not really Columbo style, now is it.

The movie is about a movie composer, so throughout the movie we see him conducting. It's however quite annoying to see that he's never conducting to the music we hear. I'm not even a musical person but you don't have to be a musical genius to see that his conducting and the music we hear don't mix with each other. This to me was quite annoying. It also was quite annoying to hear the actual music, that obviously come straight of the tape and wasn't being played by the orchestra we see on screen all the time. Sounds nitpicking but those things simply bothered me and also prevented me from taking the entire movie and story serious as a good and professionally made one.

Peter Falk is still in good form as Lt. Columbo in this movie, despite his age. He already was well in his 70's at the time of this production. A real good and clever police man would be enjoying his pension by then. Billy Connolly is also acting nicely but I think he deserved a better script to work with. He does his very best with his character but due to the story you just never get close enough to the character. Richard Riehle also appears in the movie again, who previously starred also in the other previous Patrick McGoohan directed Columbo movie "Columbo: Ashes to Ashes", in the same role.

Not a great 21th century Columbo-entry.

6/10

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