Selleck gives 'Stone Cold' character

February 19, 2005|Globe Staff

Tom Selleck is just right as author Robert Parker's Jesse Stone, a small-town police chief with a rock-hard expression and a cool gaze. He's laconic, and slightly ironic, soldiering his way through a serial-murder case with nary a shift in his poker face. "He's not a talker" is what the locals say. Of course Stone only appears to be as unsentimental and unyielding as the craggy New England coastline. Behind his eyes, swollen with age and wisdom, sadness lingers.

Selleck makes "Stone Cold" worthwhile, as he transforms his deliberate, wooden manner into character depth. The CBS movie, which premieres tomorrow at 9 p.m. on Channel 4, doesn't offer much in the way of suspense, and there are no unforeseen twists to speak of. You'd find more procedural tension in any of TV's many weekly crime dramas, where the clues drive the cops from suspect to suspect. But as a character study of a simple man with simple demons, "Stone Cold" does its job effectively.

The movie doesn't take long to identify the killers, a wealthy couple with too much time on their hands. Ultimately, scriptwriters John Fasano and Michael Brandman are most interested in Stone and his canny little exchanges. When his young girlfriend encourages him to let go of his feelings for his ex-wife, who still phones him out of friendship, Stone responds, "Your advice is good. It's just not for me." He knows himself all too well. Thrown off his career track by alcoholism and divorce, he's steeped in bittersweet resignation.

The movie has a bit of fun with the bad guys, Brianna and Andrew Lincoln, videocam-obsessed voyeurs who get their thrills by controlling the lives of complete strangers. Jane Adams and Reg Rogers play them with campy derangement, and they stand out in the movie like "Austin Powers" characters in a John Grisham adaptation. They're almost cross-eyed with mad murderousness. Against the backdrop of a foggy, gray Massachusetts town and Stone's calm demeanor, they're perverse cartoons. So is Mimi Rogers as the sexed-up lawyer who says to Stone, "I could take you apart in court for that. But if I did, how would I get you in bed?"

The movie's other plot, about the rape of a high school student, is less engaging because it's more doggedly conventional. The victim doesn't want to identify the boys who assaulted her, and so Stone and his loyal colleague, Molly (Viola Davis), set out to make arrests without her assistance. It's a bad episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." Eventually, the rape links up with the murder scenario, and it gives us an opportunity to see Stone's unwavering compassion in action. But it's nonetheless an exercise in unimaginative storytelling, and TV doesn't exactly need more of that.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.