Peter Weller's an L.A. cop with an in-ground swimming pool and a case his bosses don't want him to solve. So what's he going to do? He's going to solve it, boring the viewer to sleep while he does too. It's not Weller's fault. It's the script. And the direction, but I'll get to it in a minute. The script has this wonderful, unspeakably awful way of every time a character talks to another character, they refer to that other character by name. It's like the screenwriters went to a seminar and heard the use of names is good for emphasis. Revealing emphasis or some such nonsense.
I had intended starting this post with a comparison between made-for-cable cop mysteries with b-movies from the 1950s, but Rainbow Drive is so bad--well, I guess, it's bad like most of those 1950s b-movies. Besides the terrible script, and the inability to make a case of Chinatown-level confusion worth unraveling, it's director obviously thinks in terms of television sets. Bobby Roth directed one episode of “Miami Vice” and, with his Tangerine Dream score going in Drive, thinks he's Michael Mann. To say he's not is such an understatement, it's not worth exploring. TV movies do not have to look like TV shows. Orson Welles composed quite a bit in 4:3 and it doesn't look like a TV show. Roth's also a terrible director of actors. Rainbow Drive has familiar faces saying bad lines and generally embarrassing themselves, particularly Bruce Weitz.
I could try to defend Weller's performance in this one, but it's pretty damn bad. David Caruso's real good though, back when he acted. He takes a noteless role and makes it interesting to watch.
On the plus side, however, some of the second unit shots on L.A. are cool looking.
CREDITS
Directed by Bobby Roth; screenplay by Bill Phillips and Bennett Cohen, from a novel by Roderick Thorp; director of photography, Tim Suhrstedt; edited by Henk Van Eeghen; music by Tangerine Dream; production designer, Claudio Guzman; produced by John Veitch; released by ITC Entertainment Group.
Starring Peter Weller (Mike Gallagher), Sela Ward (Laura Demming), David Caruso (Larry Hammond), Tony Jay (Max Hollister), James Laurenson (Hans Roehrig), Jon Gries (Azzolini), Henry G. Sanders (Marvin Burgess), Chris Mulkey (Ira Rosenberg), David Neidorf (Bernie Maxwell), Bruce Weitz (Dan Crawford), Chelcie Ross (Tom Cutler), Rutanya Alda (Marge Crawford), Megan Mullally (Ava Zieff) and Kathryn Harrold (Christine).
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