Bad Faith (1999) from Tuna and Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Bad Faith is a Canadian Drama/Crime/Thriller made in Alberta in March and April of 1999, which went directly to the discount bin in the USA in 2000, under the name  "Cold Blooded".

Someone has been abducting young children, and the community feels the police are not doing anything about it, so organize their own campaign. A girl is raped and assaulted, and goes to the police. She ID's the guilty party, and the detective handling the case wants to lock him up forever, but can't do much because the suspect is the prize snitch of the chief of homicide. The chief sets his snitch free, and the detective secretly contacts an investigative journalist when the chief has a location of the body of one of the missing girls moments after releasing the snitch.

NUDITY REPORT

  • Elizabeth Hanes shows breasts as the assault victim
  • Sonia Donaldson shows full frontal as the detective's girlfriend
  • Several unidentified garment removal specialists show breasts in a tittie bar.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • Full-screen format

  • bare bones

  • indifferent transfer

There is a lot of history between the two cops, which involves some incident where the detective's brother was killed, and something which caused the chief to require a prosthetic wooden hand. The detective now lives with his brother's widow.

I don't want to ruin the story, as you might well want to watch this one. There are twists and turns aplenty, but all of them logical. I quite enjoyed this story, and didn't guess the ending.  

George Moriarty's 1911 baseball card

Scoop's comments in yellow:

Michael Moriarty, who played the assistant DA in this film, is an interesting character. Early in his career he played the part of "Author", the crafty and literate left handed pitcher whose journal formed the basis of the classic baseball film "Bang the Drum Slowly". 

This was especially fitting because Moriarty's own granddad, George Moriarty, was Ty Cobb's teammate on the Detroit Tigers from 1909 to 1916. Although George was no match for Ty on the field, he was good enough to stay in the majors for a decade and a half as a player, spending altogether about 50 years in professional baseball in various capacities.

In 1909, his first year with the Tigers, he hit .273, a very respectable average in the deadball era, and led American league third baseman in fielding percentage. He matched his .273 average in the World Series, outhitting Cobb in a seven game series lost by the Tigers to Honus Wagner and the Pirates.

In 1935, working as an umpire in the world series, Moriarty gave baseball one of its proudest moments. He stopped a World Series game to tell the manager of the Chicago Cubs, Charlie Grimm, that if he heard any more anti-Semitic profanity directed at the great Jewish slugger, Hank Greenberg, he would throw Grimm and five star Chicago players out of the game. Grandson Michael said, "Baseball in the Moriarty family is a sacred thing, and my grandfather didn't allow anyone to drag it into the gutter with something as despicable as racism."

The Commissioner fined Moriarty for holding up the game!

------

Michael Moriarty is interested in far more than acting. He's an accomplished jazz musician and a political activist. He graduated from Dartmouth, and was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. After a constant battle with alcoholism for many years, he was arrested for an assault upon his girlfriend in a Vancouver watering hole in November of 2000, then found himself flat broke in March of 2001, despite a highly successful career in films, television, and on stage. Finally aware that he had hit bottom, he had his last drink on March 31st of that year, and is now writing a book about what life is like as a recovering alcoholic.

His political career is eccentric, to say the least. He talked about running for the governorship of Florida some years ago, and then spent quite some time actively promoting himself to be the mayor of Calgary, Alberta. He is a rather noted and colorful character in Canadian right-wing politics, is an ardent anti-Socialist, and has been threatening for some time to form a new national Republican Party of Canada.

Here is Moriarty's official home page

Here is a comprehensive unofficial page dedicated to him

 

As for this film. I don't agree with Tuna's assessment. You have some red flags here:

1. The film sat on the shelves for two years before they decided to release it, then did so under a different name.

2. Michael Moriarty agreed to appear in it because he was broke and to boost the cause of Calgary filmmaking. He was trying to run for mayor of that city, and really needed to suck up to the voters. The rest of the cast is from the B list, to be generous.

3. Nobody took a screenwriting credit for this film. The only author listed is the guy who wrote the novel. It's usually a bad sign when people start asking to have their names removed from a film.

I suggest you avoid it. It's like watching a high school play from an original script written by a freshman. It's filled with stock characters, and the script is boring, with too many unnecessary detours, completely telegraphed developments, and excessively talky scenes.  I do agree with Tuna, however, that the very last scene of the film was cool.

The Critics Vote

The People Vote ...

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C+. Capable, interesting crime thriller. (Scoop disagrees: D+)

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