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| Entertianment Weekly Touching Evil Review |
Time flies, time waits for no man, only time will tell...
Touching Evil is obsessed with time. San Francisco Organized and Serial Crimes
Unit detective David Creegan (Jeffrey Donovan) was dead for 10 minutes after a
man in a ski mask shot him in the head. Now fully recovered, he's a slightly
tormented, often bemused man with a surplus of visions that surface like
pinpricks and a shortage of impulse control -- making him a great investigator
and an occasionally annoying partner to Susan Branca (Vera
Farmiga).
''Evil'' is much more engaging, however, than a mere
odd-couple cop show, or even a good serial-killer series. Taking cues from the
surreality of ''12 Monkeys'' and the Hughes brothers' hyper-stylized ''From
Hell'' (no surprise, since the brothers and Bruce Willis are among the exec
producers), ''Evil'' has created one bitter little fairyland. It's a place where
day and night twist into each other quite regularly: Creegan suffers insomnia
and sometimes dreams while awake. His adopted best friend, Cyril (the
pinball-eyed Pruitt Taylor Vince), is a schizophrenic who, when not properly
dosed, believes Creegan is the one kindly figure in his endless nightmare. If he
can only wake up he'll be back on his proper planet.
Cyril's wish is a
running theme: Please let me be dreaming. A farmer investigates a noise in the
barn and finds three mutilated horses. A woman is awakened after being knocked
unconscious, so she can see her gutted stomach. Some scenes are so unlikely,
coincidences so weird, at first you think they're dream sequences. Actually,
they're just ''Evil'''s day-night mind games, turned on the
audience.
Brilliant, then, that the show -- based on the stark British
miniseries -- tweaks our insecurity further. Creegan, our guide through this
freaky wonderland, is a guy who turns somersaults for no reason and strips off
his clothes on a crowded flight because he feels like it. This isn't as Mel
Gibson -- in -- ''Lethal Weapon'' as it sounds, partly because Creegan's tics
can be kind of darling, reflecting a boundless affection for the hurt and
confused. ''Oh, s---, I was supposed to bring Cyril to a volleyball tournament
tonight,'' he blurts in the middle of a manhunt strategy session. ''Cyril loves
coed volleyball.''
Much of the credit for ''Evil'''s success goes to
Donovan, the most charming detective since David Duchovny's oddball ''X-Files''
obsessive. He plays Creegan as a nimble blend of smart-ass, sweetheart, and
wide, gaping wound -- a guy whose antic silliness can swerve into tear bursts
when he commiserates with a murderer that there's no getting his old life back.
I do, however, hope the recent decision to pack Creegan's ex-wife and kids off
into witness protection heralds a slight easing of his hair-trigger volatility.
I don't want to see another moment where Creegan ''crosses the line'' with a bad
guy who has threatened his family (or just his sense of decency). ''Evil''
should be above that cliche.
And while I'll miss images of Creegan asleep
in the bed across from his girls, their cloud-swirling night-light mirroring the
fast-moving sky outside, I do hope their loss is Susan Branca's gain. Farmiga,
with her serene, feline face and cool amusement, is a great match with Donovan
-- speaking of ''X-Files'' -- and the two have an understated chemistry. It's a
lovely, quiet thing to watch Branca forge connections with the rootless Creegan,
like her willingness to play hangman with him during a briefing on a serial
killer called the Hangman. (Winning answer: I had a difficult
childhood.)
''Evil'' got springier with its recent cast addition --
''Alias''' Bradley Cooper, lending his awkward energy as Mark Rivers, a profiler
who hails from West Virginia (same state as Clarice Starling, one can't help
noticing). Other developments have been darker. We've discovered OSC head
Enright (Zach Grenier) had a lover who was murdered by a serial killer, and
Branca is still reeling from a fiance's suicide -- ugly pasts and uglier
presents are endemic. There's a reason Creegan still bears a dog-leg-shaped scar
on his forehead. In ''Evil'''s vicious, clock-spun world, there are some wounds
time absolutely won't heal -- and we're all of us marked. Grade: A-
END
May 7, 2004 - article courtesy of Entertainment Weekly and Gillian Flynn
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