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'Wanted,' criminality
most monstrous
Yeah, and the cops aren't entirely sweet either
By Steven Rosen
The City of Angels becomes
the City of Psychopaths in TBS’s new “Wanted.”
And no, it’s not another insider look at the entertainment
industry but a brutally violent, blunt-as-its-title, stylishly
high-testosterone series about a vigilante-like, multi-agency cop
team charged with ridding LA of its 100 worst criminals. Dead or
alive, preferably dead.
In many ways this show, from Aaron Spelling’s
Spelling Television, is a repulsive piece of fear-of-crime
exploitation. And yet there’s something that feels important about
it, like it’s plugged into the mad-as-hell zeitgeist of a
terror-frightened America.
“Wanted” which was created by Jorge Zamacona (“Oz,”
“Homicide”) with Louis St. Clair, comes across as a barely
repressed fantasy about fighting back against terrorists. The police
team is a law-enforcement Justice League of America with a veritable
license to kill.
At one point the unit’s leader, a police
lieutenant played superbly by Gary Cole, warns of the enemy: “These
people are on suicide missions.” (It’s an interesting comment in
the context of the story, since most of the criminals he chases are
trying to escape and stay free.) In another, the bad guys are
terrorists, Serbians who cross the border in Texas.
“Wanted” is well-acted and has a good ear for dialogue.
While the prose does get purplish, the colloquialisms ring true. And
some of the more human moments are powerful.
But “Wanted” takes a strong
stomach. The series makes “Dirty Harry” look like "Winnie
the Pooh" by comparison. The criminals are monstrous with their
shaved heads, tattoos, storm-trooper-from-outer-space uniforms and
penchant for mass murder and rape.
In the first episode, a satanically gleeful escaped killer
rapes a child. The second features several grueling close-ups of the
body of a young girl murdered outside the door of her safe suburban
home. Sunday’s upcoming episode features a husband grieving over
his bloodied and presumably murdered wife after a home invasion, as
well as a scene of a stone-cold Korean gang leader shooting up a
market.
The foul-mouthed tough cops trying to fight back are
pretty frightening themselves. They’re led by Cole as a
hard-as-nails lieutenant whose sensitive side, concerning separation
from his beloved son, is deeply hidden. Another member of his mostly
male team yells at a reluctant male witness in a strip bar:
“Touch me again and I’ll change your tampon.” In the upcoming
episode, an aggressive cop played by a seductive Lee Tergesen mocks
a confessed female criminal when she starts to puke. And another one
puts a gun to a dog’s head. Nice guys!
Were it just about its macho posturing and exaggerated
mayhem, “Wanted” would be a complete waste. And while its souped-up
production values--quick cuts, whooshing close-ups, varying film
stocks and arty, grainy exposures--seem fresh on TV, moviegoers will
recognize them from the Jerry Bruckheimer/Tony Scott action movie
“Enemy of the State.” The police reliance on electronic
eavesdropping/tracking equipment in “Wanted,” too, seems
borrowed from that source.
One of the series’ great strengths, a visual portrait
of a grimy, grungy, congested and industrial LA worlds away from the
glamour of “Entourage,” seems to owe its vision to Michael Mann’s
2004 film “Collateral.”
These are good big-screen sources for a TV show, but
maybe too good given their--and “Wanted’s”--high body
count.
Yet this could be one of those shows, like “Miami
Vice” in the 1980s, that winds up speaking to who we are as a
nation right now. For better or worse.
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Aug. 11, 2005
©
2005
Media Life
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Steven Rosen is a Los Angeles writer.
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