Death Errors
Det. Larry Starczek (Tom Selleck) and assistant DA Muriel Wynn (Monica Potter) had been secretly carrying on but on the night that Muriel told Larry they should call it a day they end up attending a crime scene involving the murder of three people. Together they end up working the case till they arrest Romeo 'Squirrel' Gandolf (Glenn Plummer) who is found guilty of the crime. But many years later and just three weeks before Gandolf is due to be executed new evidence shows up with defence lawyer Arthur Raven (William H. Macy) rushing to prove Gandolf is innocent especially as a dying man confesses to the killing. But if Raven is right it not only jeopardizes Wynn's career but also Starczek's.
First things first and the whole sexy sax thing at the start of a movie was fine during the first half of the 90s but in a movie made in the 21st century the sound of a sexy sax is out of place and to be blunt bordering on the cheesy. Okay so that is the first of a few issues which I found whilst watching the TV Mini Series/ TV Movie "Reversible Errors" and another is that this didn't need to be 173 minutes. In fairness what it was trying to achieve couldn't be done in the usual 90 minutes given to TV Movies but at 173 minutes it employs some cliches to drag it out including one at the start which sees Tom Selleck sleeping with a younger woman. There is over twenty years between Tom Selleck and actress Monica Potter and it is because of that obvious older man gets a younger woman that it is such a forced cliche.
Now I could keep going on along the lines of all the issues which include husband and wife William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman not getting enough time together as defence lawyer Arthur and an icy judge who was busted for taking bribes but that would take too long. So the actual storyline in "Reversible Errors" is actually not that bad with an elaboration on the familiar storyline of a last chance to save a man on death row who is innocent. And with more time to play with it can spend time creating not just a tangled web involving a terminally ill man but also place focus on a cop who isn't adverse to covering things up and an ambitious DA who fears her career could falter if the man they found guilty was in fact innocent. The trouble is that in order to fill almost 3 hours it doesn't so much add a lot more detail but draws some scenes out. In many ways "Reversible Errors" would have been better at around the 135 minute mark which for TV is an awkward length.
The thing which "Reversible Errors" has going for it is a cast of well known faces with Tom Selleck once again cast as the detective with a sardonic side who as I mentioned earlier has that side where he seems capable of charming a younger woman in to his bed, makes me think that Selleck is like the James Bond of the cop world with his ability to attract younger women with his charm. But it is a regular sort of performance from Selleck and it is the same throughout with Potter, Macy, Huffman and Rebhorn all delivering the solid but familiar performances you expect from them in what is a long but regular crime/ courtroom drama.
What this all boils down to is that "Reversible Errors" is entertaining although it is only a typical sort of crime movie which doesn't have anything to make it stand out from the crowd other than a running time of nearly three hours.
