Retro Reel by Sreepathy, Volume 12

Retro Reel is a column about movies, but not about the latest box-office releases. There will be aspects of review, but the column is intended more as a recommendation of good movies of different genres, with the sense of a retrospective – hence, the ‘Retro’ in the name. In a day and age when movies are projected digitally, the word “reel” may seem retrograde and outdated. Yet, no other word captures the imagery of a movie as “Reel”…Sreepathy is an unabashed movie buff who loves a well-told onscreen story. He has a list of about 450 must-watch movies, and Retro Reel is an attempt to share with friends of a similar bent of mind, some of the best movie-watching experiences he has had. He lives in Naperville with his wife and two sons.

The Not-So Idiotic Box

Idiot-box…Chewing-gum for the mind…Small-screen…

Television: This humble but omnipresent domestic appliance is called all that and a few other pejoratives. To be sure, much of what the box has to offer – especially what pretends to be news analysis – is for idiots. But make the right choices, and you can easily avoid being one. If TV, like chewing gum, ends up being fun but is utterly useless, it’s not so much the fault of the gum as the one chewing it. As for screen-size, calling the TV ‘small’ is laughable these days. Every other time I walk into Costco now, it has added a couple of more inches to itself.

But why has this movie-column turned into a TV-column this time ? TV has always been called the lesser cousin of movies, but as I said before it’s all about choices. If you pick your programs well on the telly, you will get to see storytelling quality at its stellar best for little or no money. And for this edition of Retro Reel, I thought of having a little fun writing not about movies, but about a couple of very impressively mounted TV programs. So, here goes…

The other day, I read that 11 of the 15 most popular current TV shows in the US are what are called “police procedurals”. Just tells you that crime pays…And entertains too ! But of all the so-called police procedurals, two series really stand out, in my opinion, for the exceptional finesse of their case narratives – Law & Order and The Mentalist. Though both series have episodes that are essentially whodunits, they differ vastly in the way they go about their business of crime-busting and criminal-catching. When it comes to engaging our minds, each of them has its distinct points of appeal with equally satisfying results.

L&O is perhaps the oldest, longest-running, and trailblazing crime series of the modern television era. At a time when public perception of law-enforcement agencies was at its lowest in the US, Dick Wolf, the series creator, started it with the idea of presenting a more upbeat picture of the justice system without compromising on realism. The authenticity of the early episodes of the series in 1990 quickly became its hallmark without losing any of its shine for the next twenty years or so. The series was so popular that it created two equally good offshoots – Law & Order-Special Victims Unit and Law & Order-Criminal Intent, each with its distinctly specific crime theme.

Each episode of L&O is an independent crime story based on true, news making contemporary events and is neatly divided into two halves: Investigation and Prosecution. The initial investigation is handled by detectives of the police department and the subsequent prosecution by the DA’s lawyers in a criminal court of law. In handling both these processes, L&O is a stickler for a serious, by-the-book, nose-to-the-ground approach and relies on its strong depiction of how a crime is investigated and prosecuted in the real world. You remain engrossed by the logical, systematic and methodical manner in which the detectives and the prosecutors go about their jobs.

law-and-order-criminal-intent-cast

And true to this style, the show is all about team-work, with almost no place for individual flamboyance. There is no Batman-like superhero fighting crime. Neither is there a Perry Mason-like super legal eagle. Thanks to the serious doses of realism and balance in its writing, the show’s heroes don’t win all the time; the bad guys get away sometimes and the good ones are left shame-faced. And because the narrative is based on true events, the plot details and diversions are authentic, never farfetched. They just awe you with their starkness and sheer humanity. Truly, real-life crime is more bizarre than anything that fiction can brew in its cauldron.

You would think crime-stories are not a source of education. Think again. Each episode of L&O informs you how some of the most egregious crimes that happen all around us come very close to affecting our individual lives. Whether it is the case of the man-next-door who is an internet stalker/predator, or the office coworker who goes berserk one fine morning, or the plain-Jane housewife who cold-bloodedly plans the elimination of a close friend in her social circle. All of them hit close to home. Ultimately, Law & Order is about the integrity it brings to each of its stories. And if you think hard about it, even in a cynical world, there is something very compelling and entertaining about the quality of integrity. It’s fun to watch good people work hard and do the best they can.

Simon Baker

But how about The Mentalist ? Now, that’s a whole different show !

If Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot was a woman and was married to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, what would they bring into the world ? Patrick Jane: Super sleuth of The Mentalist, created by Bruno Heller. Patrick Jane closes crime cases by combining the phenomenal observation powers of Holmes with Poirot’s uncanny ability to get into the mind of the criminal. Like both Holmes and Poirot, he shows off his talents with an unmistakable penchant for the theatrical. And yes, like both of them he is entirely and purely fictional. Reality is good, but sometimes fiction is better.

Very adept at subtly manipulating people, Jane, the son of a carnival entertainer is himself a very consummate trickster, conman, magician, performer and entertainer, all rolled into one. A man of many talents, he is an ex-psychic who has now decided – thanks to a deep and dark personal reason – to use his “people skills” in solving crime. He works as a “consultant” in a five-person elite crime-busting team in California – consulting occasionally, but insulting more often. His methods are anything but by-the-book – he has no patience for rules and policies, follows no set process, is quirky, unpredictable, arrogant, often intrusive, and irritates the heck out of people. He uses deception, hypnosis, outrageous mind-games, and elaborate psychological traps – all of course, with the noble intention of cornering, catching, and delivering the criminal to justice. He solves every mystery that comes his way and catches every bad guy in every case that crosses his path – nothing ever slips by him. To be sure, the team that he works in is professional, well-knit, and efficient. But without the charismatic character of Patrick Jane, The Mentalist would go up in a puff of smoke, much like a magic trick.

Jane’s character is very much in the mold of classic fictional detectives of some of the best crime writers. Pulling of an incredible character like that and making these kinds of stories tick is all in the writing and scripting. And that’s where the writing team of the show proves equal to the prowess of my old-time favorites, Dame Agatha and Sir Arthur. The Mentalist can easily claim to be one of the most brilliant pieces of creativity to hit the “small screen” in recent times. In fact, the writers have done one better by consistently weaving warm humanity and wry humor into scripts that are otherwise filled with murder and mayhem. As a result, every episode of the show invariably leaves a bit of moist in your eye and a smidgen of smile on your lips.

mentalist cast

Not just the writing, but in terms of acting performance too, The Mentalist is brilliant. The ensemble acting by the main cast is certainly endearing, but it is the protagonist’s role that takes all the acting honors. Panache – that’s what an actor needs to carry off the show’s amazing star character, Patrick Jane. And panache is what Simon Baker, playing Jane, oozes from every pore of his being, not to mention the oodles of charm he brings to the character. But for his savvy acting, the show would not be what it is. Simon Baker’s acting is so insidiously effective that he makes you willingly suspend disbelief. So mesmerizing is his performance that you often refrain from questioning Jane’s incredible, though intelligent, ideas and begin to simply traipse along on his countless devious schemes. Can you ask for anything more mental ? I guess not…

Ultimately, whether to be entertained by the integrity of Law & Order or by the intelligence of The Mentalist is a choice that’s up to you. But either way, you won’t fail. Though if you ask me, I’ll take both…

PS: DVD sets of both L&O and The Mentalist are available in the Naperville Public Library.