I would shout it from the rooftops on any given Sunday: I’m a huge, huge Robert B. Parker fan, and I make no excuses for it. The man could weave the most brilliant, complex characters in so few words that it was beyond masterful. It was a great loss for the literary world when Parker passed recently, at the age of 77, still writing his amazing characters. Someday, I will get past the fact that I’ll never know if Sunny and Richie get back together for good, if Jesse ever gets over Jen, and if Susan ever gets over herself. I know that Spenser and Hawk will stay awesome.
The good news is that some of Parker’s characters live on … on the small screen at least. I mentioned the other day in a comment on Aryeh’s ABC dream Saturday night lineup post that Robert Urich was the perfect casting choice for Spenser. I feel the same way about Tom Selleck‘s Jesse Stone.
After six Jesse Stone movies, Selleck has become invested in the series, producing all of them. This new installment, Jesse Stone: No Remorse, was written by Tom Selleck (the third he’s co-written) and acted to perfection, as always. Selleck has managed to get inside the character of Jesse Stone (and the head of Robert B. Parker) to bring to the screen the struggles of the sensitive, smart police chief with a weakness for his ex-wife and alcohol.
All the Parker charm is written in there — Jesse giving out his cell number to everyone, but saying that he doesn’t want anyone else to have it; the touching friendship between Stone and Rose; the deep conversations and connection between Stone and Dr. Dix. There are always good mysteries and crimes attached to the story, but the slow burn of Jesse evolving as a character is what makes these movies. The big draw this time is watching Jesse get close to his dog, a huge accomplishment for him since he lost his last dog around the same time his marriage broke up.
To the blog critic who nitpicked that the cops of Paradise didn’t know about the successful gay bar, I say watch more closely: Jesse was, in fact, in Boston. It’s obvious where Stone is if you’re paying attention. This person has also not seen any of the previous movies, and I’m assuming isn’t a Robert B. Parker fan, because clearly all the characters — and what drives them — have been sorely misunderstood in this semi-negative review. Parker’s a throwback from the Raymond Chandler days, so there are going to be snarky comments about gay people, and hot women throwing themselves at the male lead — get over it and get into it.
Or get past it and just enjoy the amazing cast — Kathy Baker, William Devane, William Sadler (Oh, and as an aside — William Sadler and Anthony Heald were totally separated at birth … seriously, they are the same guy), — and the beauty of their scenes together, the characters, their interactions, and all that’s said with the silences. This is a pretty serious movie with some deep stuff going on, but it is so beautifully shot, and is so infused with the hope of healing and the awesome protectiveness of Jesse Stone for his friends, the victims … everyone. And wait patiently for the next installment, because there are a few loose ends left when all is said and done.
Jesse Stone: No Remorse airs on Sunday night, May 9 at 9:00 on CBS. And what a Mother’s Day gift it is.
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on May 05, 2010 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
Wow – I can’t tell you how many times in the last four weeks I thought about this series that I have never seen. Tom was on The Late Late Show about a year ago plugging the latest incarnation of this series of TV Movies and after you made that post about the Magnum P.I. title sequence (was that you? I think so, yes) and we had that post about “As which character do you remember (name) actor?” I had to think about Tom so often and if I remember him as Thomas Magnum or Richard on “Friends” and then I thought of this interview with Craig and that I never saw this show. Not that this is a Baader-Meinhoff moment because it’s all so obvious but I find it so extremely great that you wrote this :-)
Hope you have a nice day. Happy thoughts, right? :-)
*POST AUTHOR*
Glad you enjoyed it! I tell ya, these movies are so well done and I really respect Selleck for making sure he’s associated with something that’s high quality. These are no trashy TV movies…. And that would be a fun poll … you’ve got me thinking! :-)
My wife and I are big fans of robert parker novels, especially the jesse stone series, we are thrilled that tom selleck, picke dup on these novels., We can,t wait to see the movie.