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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. |
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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. |
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| 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. |
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