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'Raines,' noir copper with a head case New NBC drama takes chances and makes them work Mar 14, 2007
In an era of Bruckheimer quick cuts, any series with enough confidence in its premise, its actors and its writing to take the time to let its characters breathe is refreshing. With its lush visuals, Hollywood setting, cynical voiceover narration and haunted hero, “Raines” could be a color version of an old Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum picture. Yet for all the respect it shows for LA's past, “Raines” is not the noir of Humphrey Bogart. It's the new noir, with BlackBerries, online escort services, and neurotic, therapy-needing detectives. And as the new noir it works. “Raines'” creator, Graham Yost (“Speed”), has found a few ways to cleverly tweak the expectations of a traditional detective drama, and one is by casting Jeff Goldblum (“Independence Day”), with his unconventional looks, mannerisms and vocal style. Goldblum is an ideal choice to play Michael Raines, an experienced police detective struggling to stay balanced after a shooting gone bad. Raines is no cookie-cutter Hollywood cop. Yost has him literally seeing the victims of the crimes he’s investigating. To understand their lives, Raines conjures them up after death. He talks to them as a tool to uncovering their killers. The apparitions only go away if he solves their murders. He's haunted by them, and since they’re all in his head, he's haunting himself. Other series (“Medium,” “The Ghost Whisperer”) have characters who talk to dead people. But in those the leads are really interacting with ghosts, and the ghosts are real characters. With Raines, it's different, his ghosts are different. He's an emotionally damaged tough-guy detective who must live with extended hallucinations that both inform and threaten his work and also his sanity. It's an odd, unconventional setup, and yet it's effective. The series begins some months after a shootout that put Raines temporarily out of commission and ended his partner Charlie’s (Malik Yoba, “Thief”) police career. On his first day back, Raines is sent to investigate the death of a pretty college student. Suddenly she appears to him. Raines, concerned that he’s losing his mind, confides in former partner Charlie but he keeps the visions secret from his boss, Captain Lewis (Matt Craven, “Crimson Tide”) and other police station colleagues, which include Carolyn (Nicole Sullivan, “MADtv”), Lance (Linda Park, “Star Trek: Enterprise”) Boyer (Dov Davidoff, “Third Watch”) and Samantha (Madeleine Stowe. “Twelve Monkeys”), who appears in the second episode as Raines’ therapist. Goldblum does a superb job with a tricky role, being equally convincing as a seen-it-all cop and a man doubting his own sanity. He's believable barking orders at a crime scene or interrogating a suspect but he also nails the out-there delusional stuff. When the murdered student chastises him for stereotyping her, he’s embarrassed by his assumptions, annoyed at being reprimanded, and bewildered that a figment of his own imagination could illicit the first two reactions. Craven, as Raines’ surprisingly sympathetic superior, deftly navigates the police captain clichés inherent in his role. Sullivan, Yoba, Park and Davidoff all offer able support. Stowe, whose stunning looks were made for old-time noirs, has starred opposite the likes of Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis and Anthony Quinn, and she easily holds her own with Goldblum. “Raines" is aided greatly by Yost’s zippy dialogue and evocative imagery. He employs a luscious visual style that captures a Los Angeles that barely exists anymore, using of locations like the Hollywood Hills and the sun-drenched Venice Beach boardwalk. There’s even a nod to Robert Altman’s 1973 Phillip Marlowe remake, “The Long Goodbye,” when Raines takes the same exterior tower elevator Elliot Gould used. For sure, “Raines” is a long shot. NBC stopped production after seven episodes, so unless it generates promising ratings it's a goner, another interesting idea to land on the heap of interesting ideas that never quite got the chance they deserved. "Raines" deserves that chance far more than most.
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