Undescribable Perfection

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Patrick Swayze first impressed me with "Dirty Dancing" and I had hoped to see him helm a spate of musicals. After nearly losing hope, I had the pleasure of watching Swayze again in "Ghost" and was impressed by his soothing mix of masculine sweetness. Given the enormous success of these two films, plus his impressive stint in "North and South," I surely expected a spate of impressive Swayze movies. Alas, then came the insipid "Next of Kin" (ruined by a "Hollywood" ending), the turgid "Point Break" and the sleazy "Road House". I was apparently one of few who enjoyed "FatherHood," but I was really beginning to give up hope that Hollywood would EVER take full advantage of Swayze's dramatic abilities. Ironically, but fitfully, along comes "The Beast" to give Swayze a chance to REALLY demonstrate his "acting chops," just as his boyishly handsome looks wasted away to cancer, with "The Beast," which is also the darkest, grittiest "cop show" I have seen since "The Shield". While I admire this 13 episode homage to the Swayze persona, I really wish the producers would repackage this excellent series with a new leading man. Certainly, any number of fine actors could play rogue FBI agent Charlie Baker; Liam Neeson, Denzil Washington, Russell Crowe, Michael Chiklis, Hugh Laurie, Jamie Bamber, Timothy Oliphant, David Morse and Will Patton come immediately to mind.NOTE TO PRODUCERS: If you DO decide to revive "The Beast," either for theaters or RV, PLEASE retain the style and music of the original series, as both are superb.I give "The Beast" a solid "8".

First off, the show is good, and the reviews don't seem to indicate that. The cast is fantastic, the episodes are well written, and plot thickens with every episode. It's probably more of a guys show than girls, but i can see the cool girls liking it. (If you watch American Idol with your wife every week, good luck!) I feel the best part of a the show is the alacrity of plot development. Every show starts out with no real direction, then 180's to a complicated plot, then throws a 3rd or 4th plot in the mix to confuse you, then it all comes together, but still leaves the overall plot exposed. (If you watch the show, you'll know what that meant.)

This review is based on an early impression (episodes 1 and a small part of 2, before i switched it off) and so i realize there is the possibility of improvement down the road. Although judging by what i've seen so far, i seriously doubt the people involved with the show would know how.Whereas the synopsis of the show sounded interesting in a "The Shield" sort of way, the execution of it is quite dire. A couple of FBI-agents, one experienced and shifty (Patrick Swayze) and a rookie (Travis Fimmel) are teamed up to work together on cases. The first two cases involved sales of weapons and drugs. There is no real point going into the plots of the episodes as they play out pretty much exactly as you would expect. There is a subplot involving internal affairs wanting the rookie, who's name is Dove, to cooperate with them in keeping tabs on the experienced agent, called Barker. It is implied that Barker might be involved in some dirty business even outside of just bending or even breaking the rules.This show comes across as being as mediocre as you could imagine. And that's only when it tries to be good. The camera-work is horrible. Aside from being a bad student of the "NYPD Blue" school of shaky-cam, the picture often looks blurry, and depressingly under-lit or dark altogether. It is as if the producers hired an amateur and told him "give it your best shot" with a digital camera. It tries to look hard-boiled and gritty, but it just looks annoying, especially because thanks to the limits of television it simply isn't allowed to be as gritty as it may want to be. As a result it just comes off as a poseur of a show.The show, from what i've seen, is horribly clichéd and the music score is utterly predictable in what mood it wants to set a scene in as well as when it swells up to give a scene or shot fake tension or emotional resonance. The acting ranges from mediocre (Swayze) to downright awful (Fimmel) with both of them channeling performances that have been done millions of times before by much better actors. Fimmel in particular is a twitchy, constipated-looking hybrid of Matthew McConaughey and Leonard DiCaprio, and seems selected to play the part for no other reason than to give the female audience a "hunk" to root for. The guy twitches and smirks his way through the show and we are supposed to think it is "acting".The characters they play are as hackneyed as they get, without almost an ounce of originality in behavior. The experienced guy knows all and makes the rookie do his bidding, and the rookie apparently has no problem putting his career on the line by defying internal affairs in favor of loyalty to a guy he hardly knows, except that he in fact DOES break a large number of rules and laws, which makes the investigation by internal affairs completely logical. There is no reason whatsoever for Dove to potentially sacrifice his career for this man and yet he does. Why? Because the plot requires that internal affairs be "wrong" or mistrusted by default as they always tend to be in cop shows, and the rookie to show "loyalty" to his fellow agent as if it somehow more honorable than remaining honest as a law enforcement agent. Dove inexplicably seems to think that not the bureau but his partner has given him his job and puts food on his table, otherwise there is no logical explanation why a rookie would put his job on the line for a near-total stranger. To make a long story short: the writing, much like almost everything else, stinks to high heaven and offers neither anything fresh and original, nor anything of quality even in its redundancy. Plenty of shows offer the same thing that has been done many times before, but at least they do it with quality. "The Beast" is just a TV-version of every bad B-movie in the action-section of the video-store.The only positive thing that could be said is that at least the action on display is adequate (i liked the RPG in the pilot) and if mediocrity is no hindrance in wasting some time i guess you could do even worse than this show.With "Flashpoint" for instance. But that's another story.

I saw the airing on 15 January 10:00 - 10:52 PM EST (this unusual time slot is what was scheduled). It was tight, well edited, grim, brilliant. I went to watch it with a friend and his cut was completely different. We both recorded another upcoming showing (17 January 6:00 - 7:00 PM EST and PST).The showing on the 17th was far inferior; out of order, dumbed-down, slowed down, important points left out, and truly disappointing after the brilliant cut I had seen.And if you are going to craft a show like this, don't decapitate it by blanking out every other word! Which versions did people see? Did anyone else catch two different versions of this? Which did you like better?