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| New York Daily News Review: 'Touching Evil' is all good |
***½
"Touching Evil." Tomorrow night at 9, USA.
First "Monk," and now "Touching Evil" - the USA Network has done it again.
What USA has done is beat the networks at their own game (or at least
their former one) by producing a riveting detective show with a quirky and
charming character at its center.
"Touching Evil," premiering tomorrow
night at 9 as a two-hour telemovie, is an American version of the British
miniseries of the same name. Those programs, produced from 1997-1999, starred
Robson Green as David Creegan, a former investigative hotshot who hasn't been
the same since he got shot - and, for 10 minutes, was pronounced dead.
Nicola Walker played Susan, David's initially reluctant partner as he
attempts a return to active duty after years under psychiatric observation.
For USA, the role of David goes to Jeffrey Donovan, who attacks the part
like a pit bull and screams "TV star" from the first frame. From his casual
humor to his bursts of violence, he's reminiscent of an even more tightly wound
Bruce Willis from "Moonlighting."
It's no wonder, because Willis is one
of the executive producers of this Americanized "Touching Evil," and had a hand
in the casting - along with Arnold Rifkin, Willis' current partner and former
casting-director champion.
Their instincts are dead-on.
The
Hughes brothers ("Menace II Society") are part of the team (both Albert and
Allen as executive producers, and Allen particularly effective directing the
pilot). Vera Farmiga from "UC: Undercover" is another fine choice as David's FBI
partner Susan - as strong a foil for Donovan as Gillian Anderson was for David
Duchovny in "The X-Files."
Even the guest players, who in the telemovie
pilot include Pruitt Taylor Vince and Zeljko Ivanek, are a dream assemblage of
terrific character actors. Allen Hughes shoots everything like a slightly uneasy
dream, and Donovan's David, as in the British original, comes unwound as the
search for some missing boys gets increasingly frustrating.
At one
shocking point, while questioning a suspect, David shows his distaste by
spitting in the man's face. It's a graphic example of the sorts of inhibitors
missing from David's brain - guilt and shame, for him, are things of the past.
"Being dead was easy," he tells Susan. "Coming back was the hard part."
When she asks him what he saw during those 10 minutes he was clinically
dead, David leans in conspiratorially, takes a long dramatic pause and says
quietly, "There was Starbucks on every corner."
Like "Monk," "Touching
Evil" is an often very funny crime show with an often sympathetic and sad
detective at its center. And there's another thing they have in common:
"Touching Evil," like "Monk," is one of the better shows on television - and
it's on USA.
END
March 12, 2004 - article courtesy of The New York Daily News
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THURSDAYS
