Written In Blood

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: C-

 

 

Poor Michael T. Weiss.  Since The Pretender went off the air, he has not found a vehicle that could continue his career going, despite making a career of doing voice-over work in TV animation.  He’s got the voice for it.  There is another live-action hit somewhere waiting for him, but the amazingly bad Written In Blood (2002) is not it.  The film involves a murder who it turns out is using (get this!!!) the original Sherlock Holmes novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to leave clues to taunt the burned-out cop (Weiss) in finding him.

 

That a film so very badly written would dare to even think it can quote such literature and be so stupid is the most condescending insult.  That it is introduced halfway into the flick and is so thrown in, it is a wreck.  The bad acting and even worse directing by co-writer/director John Terlesky, who shows no love or interest in this genre outside of people swearing and getting histrionic, which could happen in any film.  Having Peter Coyote as an arrested criminal having to explain the Holmes books to Weiss is the ultimate idiocy.  Both actors could do better and Coyote has.  Also, Doyle never wrote any of his books in blood, so what is the deal with the title?

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is video black and detail poor, strange for a recent production.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is punchy in an effort to try and make this more exciting, but this might as well be monophonic.  There are no extras, as this is just indefensible.  Forget this one.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo