User Reviews

There is some surface tension in this story of two mass-murdering villains who plot to rob money from a police stash and kill a graphologist (or whatever he is), but the tension derives from hoary cinematic techniques and plot devices.

I'll give an example of a hoary cinematic technique and plot device. Thus: In an attempt to track down the villains by means of deduction, physical evidence, and computer skills, three investigators (including Henstridge and Scott) locate his lair in an abandoned warehouse. They creep upstairs to the loft, guns drawn, and examine the refrigerator and cabinets they find there. Henstridge open a cabinet door. There's a BOMB inside -- with a red digital read out. (Close up of numbers ticking down from the three minutes before detonation.) "Get out! Move!", shouts Henstridge. But Scott delays, tugging at some papers lodged between bricks. (Close up of read out showing about two minutes.) Henstridge rushes to Scott, tugs him, the papers come loose and they rush towards the door. (Close up of read out.) One of the guys stumbles on the staircase and the others hurry to help him to his feet. (Close up.) The three hobble awkwardly down three flights of stairs. (Close up.) They finally reach the street and run like hell. (Close up, showing all zeros in red digital read out.) BOOM, and the fourth floor is blown to bits. This is known as "cross cutting" and the first time it was used, as far as I'm aware, was in 1903, in Porter's "The Great Train Robbery." That is to say, at the time of this production, the technique was one hundred and four years old.

The rest of the plot has little to add, except that, instead of one murderer who is going to commit mass murderer at midnight, there are two who will commit the murders in different places. At times the plot seemed slapdash and confusing but I missed part of it, having been interrupted by a margin call from my broker. It took longer than I'd expected to convince him that the master was out and I was a maid with laryngitis.

You may wonder about the title. What is a "devil's tear drop," or is there any such thing? Well, in the novel and the movie there is. I don't know how common the term is among handwriting experts. You know -- when you dot a lower-case i -- you ordinarily leave a simple dot, like a period? (I disregard those who dot their i's with tiny circles or little hearts.) The devil's tear drop begins with a dot but then continues upward and to the right, diminishing as it goes, as if it were a transplant from a Chinese character.

The main theme of using documents to uncover the identity and location of the murderers might have been genuinely interesting, and informative as well. I don't mean deconstructing the writer's personality from the way he writes his letters. I'd guess that most experts can often tell a woman's writing from a man's, but beyond that it's mostly conjecture. The graphologists had pinned down the "Son of Sam" killer as an artist or engineer because of his neatly printed letters, whereas in fact he was a disorganized paranoid schizophrenic. But the main theme is clotted with back stories about family troubles in the lives of Henstridge and Scott, which I found irrelevant and boring.

I understand the need to prevent the loss of human life and the need to try and determine where the killer "The Digger" is going to strike next.

I also understand how important the document is.

What I DO NOT understand is this: 1. What happened to the cell phone the guy made the call with? 2. Why was there absolutely NO EFFORT to try and determine WHO the dead guy (presumably the BRAINS behind the operation) was? *****SPOILERS***** That should have taken priority over all. If you could identify the guy, you MIGHT be able to identify his friends, acquaintances, etc. Even though it came out in the movie later that the dead guy was a "patsy," there had to be SOME kind of contact information between him and the REAL brains behind the operation.

Other than that big plot hole, it was a very "family oriented" crime drama. Something you could watch on a rainy Saturday afternoon with the kiddies and talk about how your family compared to his family, etc.

The most fun I had out of the movie was watching how they made Toronto stand in for Washington. Oh, and BTW, the Winter Garden Theatre is not just a few doors down the street from The Royal York Hotel.

The movie opens with a killer (John MacDonald) shooting people in broad daylight at 12:00 in Union Station, Washington DC. We get to see the killer's face. In spite of this, there is no good description of the killer who looks like Dolph Lundgren and apparently there are no cameras in use there either. The authorities get a note and phone call from a Russian accented man, whose grammar is incorrect. The note asks for a ransom, or else the killer, known as "The Digger" will continue to kill. The killer drops black shell casings as his calling card.

Easy enough. You plant the money with a tracking device, then nab the guy...unless the guy dies crossing the street in a hit and run and there is no one to pay the ransom to. Natasha Henstridge plays Margaret Lukas, the FBI person in charge of quickly locating the killer before he kills again.

The movie runs with a brief subplot with Tom Everett Scott as Parker Kincaid. He is the best manuscript expert who left the FBI over an incident which still gives his son Robby (Jake Goodman) nightmares. His daughter Shannon (Rachel Marcus) seems well adjusted. His drunken ex-wife (Joanna Jang) is now sober and plans on getting married. She is serving papers so she can have custody of her children who she has been trying to buy with gifts. Olivia Jones plays Parker's attorney.

Of course the two plots run together as Parker consents to help. He tells us things about the man who wrote it and possible future targets. Natasha Henstridge appears to have some past emotional issues in case this crime story didn't have enough drama.

The movie is made for TV with its timely commercial fade outs, complete with a few notes of dramatic music. It has 3 Canadian award nominations.

The title, "Devil's Teardrop" comes from the handwriting analysis, the way the "i" was dotted. The movie was more mediocre crime drama than "chilling suspense" with more drama than action. The acting was a bit bland. I thought Rachel Marcus was good as a child actor while Joanna Jung was almost comically bad. There really wasn't any great dialogue.

Note: The FBI has a machine that can read indentations on a piece of paper (ESDA). It is so sensitive it can read up to the previous 5 pages of indentations. It is nothing like what the movie shows us.

Parker Kinkaid was a skilled forensic handwriting analyst working in law enforcement. He was so good that he earned the nickname "Puzzle Master." Then, he retired to take care of his two kids full-time after little Robbie was traumatized by a very bad man that his father was instrumental in apprehending. Robbie still is troubled by images of "The Boatman." The film will be Parker's trial in helping to solve the case of a mass murderer on the loose, while juggling his responsibilities as a single dad.

This Lifetime film does an excellent job in developing a male protagonist who has strong ethical values and backbone. The calm demeanor of Parker is exactly what young Robbie needs to overcome his fears. It also stands Parker in good stead with his careful study of the handwriting of a killer on the loose in Washington, D.C.

The acting was terrific with the lead playing Parker, as well as the FBI SA in charge of the operation to locate "The Digger." The bonding of Parker and the savvy FBI agent Margaret Lukas sustained interesting in a fairly predictable mystery. It also made up for the somewhat strained plot strand of Parker's ex-wife, a recovering alcoholic, who is filing for full custody of the children.

The strength of the screenplay was in small details like Parker's daughter Shannon and her relationship with the hamster Marzipan. There was also the touching moment of Margaret's post card written by her son, who tragically died young. Parker recognized that he said something that hurt Margaret's feelings. That moment gets closure in the film's final scene. The film's title comes from another detail of the lower-case "i" written with the teardrop that becomes the key to identifying the perp.

It was refreshing to watch a strong male character who is not a superhero, but rather a quiet, mild-mannered, sensitive, and thoughtful man who truly listens to others and combines his skills in psycho-graphology with matters of the heart.