Jesse Stone - Stone Cold

Two Birds

Jesse Stone - Stone Cold
USA 2005 Directed by Robert Harmon 
Sony Pictures TV Blu Ray Zone 1

Warning: Some spoilers.

Stone Cold is the first of the nine Jesse Stone TV movies made over the space of around about a decade, starring Tom Selleck in the title role and adapted from the books by Robert P. Parker. My dad has always liked these things when they have been randomly caught on television by him and so I bought him a Blu Ray set of the movies, Jesse Stone - The Complete Collection, for his birthday a couple of years ago. 

Now this is a first time watch for me and, while this is technically the first episode, the producers (and I think Selleck is one of them) have decided to go for the fourth book in the series first. Which means, the next one I’ll see, is actually a prequel to this one and, I’m guessing, gives the series some wild continuity issues... in much the same way that Saltzman and Broccoli gave themselves continuity issues when they decided to film Dr. No as the first of the James Bond books for the big screen. Because, I would guess that at least one of the regular characters who gets killed off here will presumably be back in the next episode. It’s also a mite problematic in that these books are set in the same ‘universe’, so to speak, as Parker’s Spenser books and share some of the same characters. Which means that the same characters here are not played by the same actors and actresses they are in the many Spenser adaptations. So, yeah, not seen any of those so I’m going to ignore it and not make comments about those issues here either. Let’s just get into it. 

So the majority of these movies are directed by Robert Harmon (who you may remember shot a popular movie called The Hitcher, with Rutger Hauer, many decades ago). And this first movie has Selleck’s Jesse Stone already set up as the police chief of Paradise in Massachusetts  (which is apparently a parody of a real place called Marblehead, for those of you who like your geography). And it’s pretty good actually... shot well while Selleck and pretty much most of the people in this do a really good job. Stone is a full on ‘laconic cop’ in the best vein of a 1940s film noir and he brings the glamour and know how of his former, failed version of the job in a big city, to the local police who have a murder on their hands. 

Now, this has two things going on. One is the rape of a girl in the local high school and the other is a string of motiveless serial killings. The two stories rub against each other but only come together in an unexpected way, fleetingly when one set of characters is used as bate, at the end of the story. But this is not a whodunnit and so, for instance, the crazy husband and wife serial killing team, who have no motive and just like doing what they’re doing, are known to the audience right from the start. As they kind of are to Jesse, who believes in his hunches... he just needs to find evidence or some other way of putting these two down. 

Perhaps because of the lack of whodunnit structure, the film does telegraph itself somewhat. Jesse has an ex-wife he has partially fled from (I’m guessing I’ll know all I want to know about his back story when I watch the next one) but he has a higher up in the legal profession (if I caught her job right) as a girlfriend and also sexual overtures from another legal professional (which I’m assuming will develop over the course of these movies). And, what can I say... about halfway through I said to my dad, “She’s not going to survive the movie, is she?’ and, no sooner were these words out of my lips when, maybe thirty seconds later, one of the key characters was killed with two gunshots to her chest. So, yeah, the film is nothing if not predictable but, I guess that’s more to do with Robert B. Parker’s original novel (assuming it’s a true adaptation) and less to do with the way the screenplay is written. 

That being said, the characters and performances are all gold here (including a turn from a much younger version of Viola Davis than I’ve seen before) and I really had a good time with this. The dialogue is great and I felt like I cared about a lot of the characters... which is half the trick, I guess. The camerawork and editing is good too, with a kind of slick feel (boosted somewhat by Jeff Beal’s score) and I was reminded a little of the kind of things Michael Mann was making in the 1980s, to be honest, in terms of the feel of this thing.

So, yeah, that’s me done on Jesse Stone - Stone Cold and I’m looking forward to watching the rest of these things with my dad... who’s pleased to be watching them in Blu Ray quality, I suspect. So will report back on the ‘prequel’ episode soon enough, I think.