The problem is that these types of highly produced projects that are expensive and have a lot of mon

If you have not heard the news already, NBC s new drama thriller, The Firm , has just been taken off NBC s Thursday night lineup to make room for a new series, Awake. While the show has yet to be confirmed as canceled, its move to Saturday is a death sentence that s just waiting for the guillotine to release. Therefore, I thought I d push out a review of the series tom cruise mi2 in light of its soon-to-be demise, and perhaps discuss why the series tom cruise mi2 spiraled to such low viewership. I mean, this is NBC we are talking about, so low viewership is almost a certain guarantee, but with Josh Lucas taking over Tom Cruise s Mitch McDeere role, Grisham s personal involvement in the rebooted sequel as executive producer, and a suspenseful plot to boot, this show should have been a formula for somewhat of a moderate success. So what went wrong and what can we learn about unsuccessful, high-produced shows such as these, with strong tom cruise mi2 investment and big names attached to them? Find out after the jump.
So for those of you who have never heard of John Grisham s The Firm , I m about to give you all a history lesson, which I myself admittedly had no idea about until today. Grisham s The Firm is just one of many popular, legal thriller novels that Grisham tom cruise mi2 is known for. I m sure many have seen some of his books adapted into films, whether it be Runaway Jury , The Client tom cruise mi2 , and of course, the subject tom cruise mi2 of discussion, The Firm . The Firm, released in 1993, starred Tom Cruise and was directed tom cruise mi2 by the late and great, Sydney Pollack. Pollack, who was the Paul Greengrass of his day, was met with mixed criticism for his direction of Grisham s story, but the film was a success thanks to the unyielding star power of Tom Cruise tom cruise mi2 as protagonist Mitch McDeere, and the film managed to gross nearly tom cruise mi2 $300 million worldwide. Flash-forward almost twenty years, and you have creator Lukas Reiter pitch the idea of a sequel set ten years after the film s events to Grisham. tom cruise mi2 Grisham accepts the project after looking through it, and the production goes underway. The series was originally supposed to be aired on CBS, which is great because that network pulls in the highest average in ratings across all five broadcast channels on prime time. However, NBC stepped in and bought the ownership rights to the series, and filming began in Toronto last year. For those of you not familiar with Reiter s work, he was a producer and script writer for NBC s Law and Order for many years, so you can see why the network was so invested in picking up the project.
The problem is that these types of highly produced projects that are expensive and have a lot of money riding on them need to either be dedicated as a miniseries or just placed on a cable network like HBO or AMC. Although cable viewership is far less than broadcast networks, the subscription fees would more than cover the budget, especially if the series took off and became a critical and ratings success. Trying to launch tom cruise mi2 such a high-profile project on NBC, and you may as well raise the white flag before you even jump into the fray. I think it s safe to say that this ambitious project was dead on arrival. As much as I feel Lucas does a valiant job taking over Cruise s role as McDeere, there are more captivating actors out there who can play heroes to a more effective degree. Lucas may forever be a C-list actor, but I do find him to a be a strong actor in the right roles. He was quite good in J. Edgar as Charles tom cruise mi2 Lindbergh, but the role he takes on in The Firm is just a tad over his skill-set. For an actor to be effective in such a demanding role, where our connection is so reliant on the main protagonist, being good doesn t cut it. Greatness, like Keifer Sutherland in 24 , is essential for us to continue to care about the madness that befalls our constantly-in-danger hero.
Moving on to the show itself, I am happy to not walk away from it feeling like I just wasted my time, like I did with my last review on FOX s Touch . Unlike that former disaster of a show, The Firm has good intentions but it s sloppily executed. I am really tom cruise mi2 starting to believe my former assertions that authors who try to launch tom cruise mi2 into the film or television foray and adapt their work usually end up failing as opposed to a skilled director and writer in the entertainment field. I think automatically of Ken Kesey, whose One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest script was thankfully dropped by  producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas in favor of Laurence Hauben and Bo Goldman s screenplay that transitioned better to the cinematic format. Stephen King also tried to pen and executive produce material based on his own work for television and film. My mind automatically goes to The Shining , which although wasn t perfect, was at least a visual masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick as opposed to King s self-indulgent miniseries. Sometimes it s best to just let the film professionals handle it, no matter how indignant you are about making sure your authorial work is properly translated. The results can be quite gruesome (See: The Stand miniseries). The Firm employs tom cruise mi2 so many cliched moments of thrills, providing us with been there, done that cat-and-mouse chases that lack suspense and make our eyes roll. Conspiracy thrillers can be effective if you evolve the premise to one that doesn t seem like its stuck in a 1990 s rut, with writing that commands instead of clumsily stumbles along.
The main problem I had with NBC s The Firm , is that it doesn t make use of its suspense premise of being on the run whatsoever in the pilot episode, which had plenty of time to do so at two hours in length. We begin with Lucas McDeere tom cruise mi2 on the run from two hired goons outside of Lincoln Memorial and The National Mall. I am a sucker for chase openings, but this one never felt life-threatening, as the goons themselves tom cruise mi2 looked equally bizarre running tom cruise mi2 by the reflecting pool as McDeere did running across it. It was as if the suspenseful mood was killed tom cruise mi2 as quickly as it was introduced. Lucas is just not that entertaining of a hero on the run. Oh, Matt Damon where are you when cat-and-mouse chases tom cruise mi2 come a callin ? Anyways, McDeere goes up to an office building where he confronts one of the clients his firm works for, who shockingly commits suicide, jumping off the several story building when the hit-men show up. The series then jumps six weeks to the past, before McDeere is even assigned to his firm. He had recently just opened up an independent law firm run alongside his brother, Ray, a private investigator, and Ray s girlfriend, tom cruise mi2 played with boring sleaze tom cruise mi2 by Juliette Lewis, who serves as the firm s secretary and receptionist. McDeere tom cruise mi2 has come out from the shadow of fear after an assassination attempt was made on his life by the mob ten years earlier, where the film version originally ended. His family was placed into the witness protection program and had been moving across the country, now finally settling down in Washington D.C. Let me make an obvious observation: Why would you not only keep your same name, McDeere, and your same profession if you are trying to go into hiding? Did logic just escape these writers and Grisham, or without that little tom cruise mi2 detail would there be any need for this show to begin with? Just sayin.
Instead of the series focusing on the conspiratorial tom cruise mi2 network that s trying to kill McDeere, the pilot episode just spews out typical Law and Order procedural discourse. It looks as if Reiter didn t stray too far from the original television show he was a part of after all. The show has zero focus on what type of format it wants to deliver every week. Granted, if this were a Law and Order plot, The Firm s episodic tom cruise mi2 story of a boy accused of murder with the weight of being tried as an adult looming over his head would be one of the more interesting cases. Unfortunately, this type of format isn t what the show s premise promised us. I expect chase scenes, Josh Lucas jumping over a parked car while bullets are being shot at him, or something to that effect. Instead, as mentioned, we get a legal procedural show with even less inspired courtroom drama. The final monologue of the judge when reaching his verdict concerning McDeere s juvenile client is so drawn out and heavy in rhetoric, it becomes a wonder how any realism can be derived from scenarios that beg to be taken seriously.
The best part of the series tom cruise mi2 is Molly Parker who plays McDeere tom cruise mi2 s wife, Abby. The writers wrote a very strong and involved part for Parker. Parker tom cruise mi2 isn t a lawyer tom cruise mi2 or has extensive knowledge in the criminal tom cruise mi2 justice field, but she is constantly involved in McDeere s every decision that occurs in their lives. She is the Robin to his Batman, and I think their partnership is one of the best husband-wife teams I ve observed in quite some time. Parker isn t just the average housewife who sits around the house, completely oblivious to her husband s dealings. She is an active participant, decision-maker, and supporter. It s a role that any female working in television would be proud to take on, and Parker plays it with such sturdiness and nerve, you instantly want a wife just like her. It s too bad the show itself is a mess, because Parker has the potential to go places in her career. Let s hope another project comes along that utilizes her acting gifts to effect.
In all, this series falters because of Lucas miscasting as a heroic figure, its inability to define its narrative format, and an overall lack of suspense which is what Grisham s novels are meant to contain in spades. I do appreciate the intentions of the show, but ultimately the payoff isn t rewarding enough. Even a last minute surprise ending tom cruise mi2 in the pilot s closing frames just seems tacked on for cliffhanger neediness, making the show seem even more desperate. I think Lucas has moments of brilliance when he tries to act jovial and friendly, but if you are expecting a bad-ass protagonist who can handle both the mafia and bloodthirsty lawyers, Lucas is not your guy. It looks like the serie