Made-for-TV movies make a comeback on cable

Remember the glory days of the network made-for-TV movies? Wemay be long past the pax schlockana of such great films as NotWithout My Daughter and Fifteen and Pregnant starring a youngKirsten Dunst and a little-too-old Park Overall. But in recentweeks USA Networks has set about staging a comeback.

In the span of two weeks, the network debuted Traffic: TheMiniseries, a “remake” of the original Britishminiseries and the 2000 film of the same name, and The PerfectHusband: The Laci Peterson Story starring Dean Cain as ScottPeterson. In the process, the network has captured all that wasgreat and all that was great because it was so very bad about thesemovies.

Moving on from the 2000 film of the same name, Traffic takes ondrugs only tangentially. While the first film skeweredAmerica’s war on drugs, writer Ron Hutchinson broadens hisscope to international smuggling traffic and the war onterrorism.

The series charts the three seemingly unrelated stories of a DEAagent in Afghanistan (Elias Koteas) trying to stop a shipment ofsmallpox from wreaking havoc in Seattle, while his teenage son(Justin Katwin) tries to help a friend (Jennifer Rae Westley)addicted to heroin; a young business school grad (Balthazar Getty)who finds himself trapped unable to escape association with ahigh-rolling drug smuggler (Nelson Lee); and an illegal Chechenimmigrant (Cliff Curtis) attempting to find justice after his wifeand daughter drown on an immigrant smuggling ship in the Seattleport.

The series features a first-rate performance from Mary McCormack(who just may recover from the horrible “K Street”) asthe frustrated wife of the DEA agent.

And Cliff Curtis never lets his character’s illegal statusdefine him, but lets it play out in subtle and interestingways.

After his character is shot running from the agents of asmuggling ring, his panic becomes amplified in his face as he runsthrough a hospital realizing he can’t be treated for fear ofbeing caught.

And in grand TV epic style, these three plots come togetherbelievably with frightening implications. Our country’scurrent track in dealing with illegal immigrants leaves us open todangerous consequences, while half the time big-time smugglersreally don’t know what they’re bringing into thecountry.

Traffic does fall apart a bit towards the end, as it moves fromsocial implications to plot resolution. And as with any good movieinvolving a government agency trying to stop the bad guys, therehas to be an improbable mole subplot.

Traffic genuflects to all these slightly hackneyed traditions.But what would a good TV movie be without a few little hitches?

Even better, though, are the TV movies with the big hitches. Forexample, what were the producers of Perfect Husband thinking whenthey decided to take on a high-profile murder case thathasn’t been resolved in court?

They’ve got a dynamic plot and the whole realm offictional possibility to tie it up with. I smell a libel suit.

But director Roger Young avoids the scent of scandal by focusinghis story on a fictional couple, friends of the Petersons, whostruggle to decide whether they can believe Scott would killLacy.

While the debate threatens to tear their marriage apart, ScottPeterson (Dean Cain) is the only one who gets to kill his obnoxiouswife in this movie. (Wait, Scott Peterson is the only one who”allegedly” gets to kill his obnoxious wife in thismovie.)

And speaking of Mr. Cain, it’s become clear that hehasn’t escaped the Superman curse either — it’scrippled his career. He turns in a bland made-for-TV performancethat’s about as gutsy as possible for an actor whodoesn’t know whether or not his character was involved in themurder around which the whole film is plotted.

Try to work that out in your head. Now, imagine you’reDean Cain, and try that again. Get harder?

If Traffic works on a Roots scale, The Perfect Husband isstumbling around somewhere on the level of Mother May I Sleep WithDanger. (Luckily, they’ve spared us Tori Spelling.)

But watching made-for-TV movies is a lot like playing limbo.Part of the fun is seeing how low they can go. Well, at least Istill have Lifetime Movie Network.

Jeremy Roebuck is a layout and design editor for The DailyCampus. He can be reached at [email protected].