Flashpoint pilot review

Flashpoint


the life of the police sniper



Type of Pilot: Cop Drama


Similar Shows: SWAT, The Unit, Standoff


The Inner Light: If you're a cop, you're three times more likely to kill yourself than to be killed by a bad guy.


Strengths: Strong lead actor, slow thoughtful style, lots of good music, fresh take on an old idea.


Weaknesses: It might be a fresh take, but it's still an old idea...


Impressive Characters: While each character (in the pilot) could be seen as a standard TV cliché (silent tough guy, wise boss, cute tomboy girl, overeager newbie) the sum of the parts implies that they will each turn out to be something greater. The show's considerable style, fresh take and strong cast makes the characters more interesting than they sound when described.


Impressive Actors: Hugh Dillon is perfect as main character who doesn't tell anyone what's going on in his head, Enrico Colantoni is typically scene-stealing as his boss who has words-of-wisdom for every occasion and Amy Jo Johnson stands out from the rest of the cast as the very cute (but still very credible) female team member. Putting a tiny (and adorable) woman in the middle of a tough group like this is a risk, but Johnson is fantastic, and seems like she totally belongs there.


Continuity: Probably light.


Rewatchability: It's a great pilot and I would watch it again.

Three Things I Really Like About This Pilot:

Hugh Dillon. This is his show all the way.

The fact that the focus is on the sniper and the aftermath of the crisis. This is a story I've not seen before.

The music.

Miscellaneous Comments:


Not what I was expecting. If you sit down to watch a drama about a SWAT team, you imagine that all the scenes with no dialogue will be scenes of the team getting ready for the kill, not scenes of the team members thinking about what they have just done. But that's what you get here. The bad guy is surprisingly ordinary. After the crisis is over, nearly every scene showing how people react is done without dialogue. Also, the crisis is resolved by the mid-way point of the episode. This show is not about the action, it's about what happens afterwards.

GRADE: A