mgconlan-1 Review of Officer Down

Officer Down (2005 TV Movie)

I Liked This a Lot Better Than I Thought I Would

[8/10 · 1 October 2005]

I liked this a lot better than I thought I would! Though the plot stretches credibility and Christopher Miller occasionally overdirects (memo to Miller: lose the strobe-like digital effects next time), for the most part this is a taut, suspenseful, better-than-average film with a marvelous performance by Fenn as the honest cop investigating a vigilante (Casper Van Dien) who turns out to be a fellow officer. Van Dien's performance is chilling and Stephen Johnston's script has a lot to say about the thin line between enforcing the law and taking it into your own hands. I was surprised to see from the entry on this site that this was a U.S. production (I'd had the impression it was filmed in Canada) and I suspect from the awkward compositions and the all-too-obvious editing out of obscene words that this was originally shot for theatrical release and the version I saw (on the Lifetime channel) was panned-and-scanned and edited for TV.