Crime Story - Season Two
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Movie Reviews of Crime Story - Season Two
Movie Review: A Trill-packed Show With A Frustrating Ending
Summary: 4 Stars
Without a doubt,the ending to Season One was explosive,literally!But by the time you get to the end of this exciting follow-up season...you may end up pulling all of your hair out.
Let me explain that:
The reason for Crime Story's short run on TV was not poor ratings,but it was the result of the "moral crusaders" who thought that the show was too violent for televison.As a result,the second season ends in a cliffhanger that was meant to be resolved in a third season that never came.Nevertheless, the Second Season is just as exciting as the first,despite a few flaws.
If you have already seen the first season,you know that Lt. Mike Torrello (Dennis Farina) and his MCU squad engaged Ray Luca and Paulie Taglia (Anthony Dennison and John Stanucci) in a gun battle on the streets of 60's era Las Vegas.Ray and Paulie escaped into the desert where they took refuge in an abandoned house....not realizing it was on U.S. Government Property and on the test site for a nuculear weapon.And so...Ray and Paulie are still on the property when the test bomb is detonated and leaving the viewer to believe that they were killed.
Season Two opens with a bang when Torrello and the MCU assist a crusading Robert Kennedy-like senator (played by a young Kevin Spacey in a one-time guest role) who has an affair with a Marylin Monroe-inspired actress while battling the mob in public hearings.After that,for at least the next few episodes,Torrello and company battle the local low-life scum such as pimps and drug pushers,and the mobsters trying to fill Ray Luca's shoes.
But then it gets interesting....Suddenly,Ray Luca and Paulie Taglia show up...with the protection of the U.S. Army!It turns out that Luca has been hiding in Mexico and using his underworld contacts to help the military smuggle weapons to freedom fighters in South America.In exchange,the Army turns a blind eye to Luca's cocaine smuggling.When the government issues a restraining order against Torrello,the MCU,and Attorney David Abrhams (Stephen Lang reprising his Season One role),Abrhams snaps and quits the Justice Department,leaving Torrello and the others to fight Luca alone.
One of the show's shortcomings is it's shotty storytelling.Although there are some brilliant episodes in the mix,there are mostly stand alone stories.It isn't until almost the last five or six episodes that they become one continuous storyline.One positive point to the series is that much of the Season One cast returns for this season.Despite it's flaws,it is a nice follow-up to a brilliant series.Watching it will make you think that the people who cancelled the show were morons.
Movie Review: 4 Stars for Season 2, 0 for Anchor Bay
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved Crime Story when it originally aired, and in reruns. However, I have to admit that Season 2 was not as good as Season 1. Season 2 did have some bright moments - final scene not included - but it lost focus in too many episodes to warrant 5 stars like Season 1.
My main problem is that I just can't get over the AWFUL job that Anchor Bay did in releasing this wonderful show on DVD. I am sitting here shocked that there are no chapter selections on the DVD!!! This is unbelievable to me. It is archaic. I am really at a lost. Also, the menu graphic is beyond cheap. I remember that Anchor Bay massacred Night of the Living Dead a few years ago, but I thought that it would redeem itself with Crime Story, boy was I wrong. This is a travesty. Fans of the series deserved better. Yes, I am happy that it is finally on DVD, yet in my glee I am not blind to the fact that Anchor Bay did a shotty job here and consequently missed a great opportunity to truly pay homage to this wonderful series that was light years ahead of its time - then and now.
Movie Review: Crime Story - Season Two
Summary: 4 Stars
Great to see this title again. I caught this on its first run on TV and have watched it again on VHS, so imagine my joy when I saw that they (Season 1 also) had been released on DVD. This show was ahead of its time, even when depicting a history some of us have never known. Michael Mann's customary character tough talk and physical swagger effects every cast member and they say so much through their body language that the screen is packed with machismo from start to finish. Even the stoolies, rats and ne'er-do'wells have a sympathetic edge.
I love it, and recommend this to anybody who will listen.
Movie Review: Glad to see it on DVD but a Disappointing Transfer
Summary: 3 Stars
I had read a few reviews here regarding the DVD versions of Crime Story, including some that commented on the poor visual quality of these transfers, but still purchased these anyway for the content, hoping those reviewers were real nitpickers. Sadly, I have to agree. While not dark and muddy as one reviewer described, they are strangely flat, lacking the contrast and brilliance one expects on a DVD. In addition, there is an annoying pattern to the image, much like if it were being viewed through a very sheer cloth, or projected onto a cloth screen. Not graininess, but definitely a faint weave-like pattern. The sound is also a bit muddy. The content is still why I bought these, but the quality is definitely not anywhere near what you'd expect. In fact, the first two seasons of Superman from the 1950's put the quality of these DVD transfers to shame. I haven't run across the song substitutions yet that have been mentioned, and my memory might not be good enough to notice those. The Del Shannon rework of Runaway is still intact at the start of each episode.Movie Review: Season Two Disappoints - Stick With Season One
Summary: 2 Stars
Speaking as a die-hard Crime Story fan (who politicked and gathered signatures to save the series after it's rumored post-season-one cancellation), it saddens me to report that Season Two is a major disappointment - for a variety of reasons, most of which can be laid at the feet of series producer Michael Mann. After all, he had final say over this mess.
As compelling and rich as Season One was (well..up until the final episode, which was an absolute abomination), Season Two is a shoddy, carboard epitath for what once was a superb quality television series. While all of the cast returned, a majority of the original writers did not (fearing cancellation, many of them left to work on another fine series for CBS called Wiseguy). The new writers that came in obviously had little or no feel for the depth of the characters, which turned the series into a comic-book-like parody of itself.
Gone was the tough-guy with a heart Mike Torello. In his place, we had a moody bully who wore driver's gloves and beat up suspects without much provocation. The poor decision to blow Ray Luca and Paulie Taglia up in the clearly-rushed final episode of Season One came back to haunt the show, causing them to come up with a far-fetched plot that brought the two "back from the dead" and introduced a drug-running plot line that reduced the once-unique and complex Crime Story into a cheap carbon copy of (another Michael Mann series) Miami Vice, albiet with tailfins.
The low point of Season Two is reached in a sorry episode that depicts crime boss Manny Weisboard suffering a heart attack. Ray Luca then kidnaps a surgeon and forces him to perform a then-untested (in 1966) heart transplant procedure - complete with shoddily-inserted video of an actual heart transplant. Truly ponderous. Your jaw will drop. In the span of one season, Mann managed to turn Crime Story from a gritty 60's crime drama into a far-fetched medical drama. The results are sad and troubling.
Fans of the show are best off forgetting that Season Two even exists, and stopping the DVD player after the fantastic next-to-last episode of the first season, "Top Of The World" (sixty minutes of the most intense TV you'll ever watch). I consider that the be the "true" last episode. Everything that follows it cheapens the legacy that is built up by what came before it.
Mores the pity, as one can only wonder what a Season Two could have been had it followed in the footsteps of Season One, and not veered off into the far reaches of the Nevada desert.