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28 January, 2002
Brother's Keeper
Brother's Keeper is a movie about police detective Lucinda Pond (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who was disgraced by a bust gone horribly wrong. As a result her whole life begins to unravel. She has an affair with a coworker, starts drinking, leaves the force and sees her own marriage come apart. Years later she is called back to duty to track the very same serial killer she was after when her life fell apart. Eventually it becomes apparent that she is actually on the trail of her own brother, who is mimicking the patterns of the killer she hunted.
The movie has some nice acting and some effective scenes but the overall tone is inconsistent. One minute the movie is deadly serious and maybe even a bit creepy and the next it has characters trading "zany banter" as they bond on the job. In other words, overused cliches and poorly written dialogue. The filming is equally inconsistent. There are some beautiful shots and there are some oddly chosen camera angles that seem to indicate the director wanted this not to seem like a standard TV movie. That doesn't necessarily mean those angles are a good thing though.
The movie's greatest offense though is stretching believability to the very breaking point. And then getting a good running start to power through that line. It's pretty hard to believe that any police force would feel so desperate as to pull a mentally unstable drunk out of forced retirement to track down a dangerous criminal. Even harder to believe is the freedom this cop would be given to run around without serious backup. The whole thing starts with a cop being killed. Generally this makes the police madder than a rabid wolverine. But these guys don't seem all that concerned about it. In fact they're so concerned they go get a burned out drunk to handle the case. Yeah right. Be prepared to leave the old grey matter in neutral for this one.
The acting though is much better. Jeanne Tripplehorn has the thankless task of playing this mess of a woman. She has emotional problems on top of emotional problems. She and her brother were beaten and mistreated by their drunk of a father. She did her best to protect her little brother and still does so. On top of this she has a career gone badly astray and a shattered reputation. Tripplehorn gives her character a nice arc as she pulls her life out of the crapper and tries to return it to respectability. Her brother Ellis is played by (Corin Nemec) and he does a nice job of it. This could have easily been an opportunity to overact but Nemec does right by keeping it under wraps. His version of a killer is almost likable. He has charm and humor and some of his murders are done to protect others. It creates a nice contrast between his personality and actions that keeps things interesting.
Overall some interesting concepts and quality performances are somewhat overshadowed by a script that desperately needed some polishing. There were too many areas where logic never came into play. This is a fairly entertaining movie but it could have been a lot more memorable. The film premieres on USA Network Tuesday, January 29th at 9:00 PM ET/PT.
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