Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone: Sea Change

source: Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone: Sea Change

A good thriller, just like the rest of the them. Tom Selleck is great as always.

I found Sea Change (2007) much more enjoyable than Death In Paradise (2006). Here we see Jesse and his police force short staffed with "suitcase" in the hospital and noticeably less screen time of Molly Crane (maternity leave). Slow days handing out traffic violations are difficult for the alcoholic police chief, so he decides to look into some cold cases to keep busy while also investigating a rape case. 👍 An appearance from Sean Young. She is entertaining as always. 👍 Return of a couple characters that haven't been seen since Night Passage (2006). 👍 First series appearance of Rose (Kathy Baker). 👎 Not much of Molly (Viola Davis). 👎 Not much of DeAngelo (Vito Rezza).

This is like all the other Jesse Stone movies. Live paced with real live drama. No sugar coating but it keeps your interest up and you can see yourself as Jesse so you pull for him and want to put him in time out other times. This is the type cop I would want to be if I had taken that path. My wife and I enjoy them all and rewatch a lot. So get a snack and put up your feet to be another you to solve a crime. Protect the weak. I wish Tom makes a dozen more of these movies. It's honesty and rare. Glad I found the series. Thank you.

Things have gone from bad to worse in Tom Selleck's relationship with his ex-wife 3000 miles away in California and he's starting to drink again. His counselor William Devane says that work is the best therapy because an active mind won't be thinking about those bad things that led one to alcohol abuse. So there are three cold case homicides on the Paradise police blotter. Selleck picks one involving a teller who was taken during a holdup in 1992 and whose body was found in 1994. The bank that was held up was the one Saul Rubinek was the president of and who on the Paradise Town Council was Selleck's biggest booster. Later on in another film Rubinek is arrested when he's found laundering money for the mob in his little small town bank. Selleck in fact goes to prison to visit Rubinek for information. He also visits the victim's family and talks to her sister Rebecca Pidgeon in his quest for justice. That looks like it could get personal as well. She's taking care of her mother who is a stroke patient and needs a lot of care. The second case is a young girl who was raped while on board a millionaire's schooner that is in the town harbor. Ironically there's a lot of sadness tied to both cases and Selleck does what he can control his own desire to drown his own sorrows with what he uncovers. Even though I kind of guessed the solution of the robbery this film was still well done and acted superbly by the ensemble.

Man I really like Tom Selleck as an actor. He does his usual excellent job in this film playing the chief of a small town who is willing to ignore the book. This is the fourth movie in the Jesse Stone series and is as well done as the previous ones. Jesse is basically bored with writing traffic violations and takes up a cold case file. A bank robbery with a murder/guard shooting. He ends up finding the real results of the case but let's it slide when it turns out that the culprit's were two sisters and the surviving one is using the money to care for her stroke disabled mother plus she is almost broke. Now Suitcase (who was shot in the last movie) comes out of his comma and seems to have developed strange prescience that are rather eerie but insightful. There is also a reported rape case that isn't. She just got caught by Daddy when she was coming in late at night and made up the story to cover her ass. Officer De'Angelo is a real tool, he rats out Stone to the city council trying to get Jesse fired so he can get the chief's job. All in all another good movie.

I have liked every Jesse Stone "movie" I have seen! Today Hallmark is re-broadcasting all six, including the most recent, which I have not seen. Unfortunately they are are in the order of the time/year they were broadcast instead of the chronological order of the books/events. Very confusing! And I wonder how much of the "movies" are being cut. The first episode; Sea Change; at noon EST not only had commercials, they essentially had infomercials. Unfortunately infomercials are everywhere disguised as regular commercials. Some 30 minute shows go 36 minutes occasionally and I hope that's so they can include more commercials in order to see the "real" full length episode, but on some blogs I've read where it's not even the case when they are given extra time. I watch Encore West for Gunsmoke and their episodes are commercial free for 25 minutes followed by 5 minutes of commercials for Encore West. I'm still not sure whether these episodes are not edited.

You can judge it by this: for the first half-hour of this crime drama, literally nothing happens. It's all Selleck moping around, toying with alcoholism, talking to his ex-wife, talking to his staff, talking to his doctor. Rinse and repeat. Endless shots of sea views and a motionless Irish setter. Finally, he and a helper take a long chatty walk into a deserted area where he digs up some old clothes - using shovels that magically appear! It's unbelievable. This careless and even arrogant disregard for actual film-making appears often. Endless slow scenes for "Acting"; silly plot devices; and continuity mistakes. It's clear that nobody worried much about the result. If you want an art film that takes itself much more seriously than an audience will, this might be it.

Robert Parker, like novelist Georges Simenon, was a master of his craft. Both men knew how to say just enough, and no more, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. Parker's books are really acts of collaboration between writer and reader. It is rare for a film to capture the spirit of the book it sprang from, and rarer still for the film to be faithful to the writer's method. The Jesse Stone films are the wonderful exception. They are true to the books, and faithful to Parker's lean, spare style. Less is always more, like a Japanese line drawing. These films are beautifully crafted little gems. High marks to all who had a hand in their production.

The music in "Sea Change" from 2007 I believe is Brahms piano music, and it's lovely and sets the mood beautifully. As with the last Jesse Stone film I saw, the mood is depression. I actually am seeing these out of order -- in the other one I saw, Jesse was off the police force. Here he is the Police Chief and talking to his ex-wife on the phone all the time. Afraid of going back to his alcoholic ways, he consults a psychiatrist (William Devane). He also dives into two cases: an old bank robbery case where a teller was killed, and an alleged rape. The town council isn't crazy about that one because of the tourist trade. I thought the script was very good, as were the production values. Unlike many on this board, I am not sold on Tom Selleck in this role. Yes, he looks weathered. This is a complicated, multilayered role and I don't see the layers in Selleck. I see him being very serious and looking miserable. Also, it plays against the qualities that made him a star, a special presence, charm for days, and a flair for comedy. And let's not forget the dimpled smile. Here he's morose. Frankly, it makes the character kind of boring even though he's obviously very smart. The other major problem for me in this episode was Sean Young, whom I never could stand. The rest of the cast is very good and top-notch: Kathy Baker, Stephen McHattie, William Devane, and Kohl Sudduth. I just wish these movies had a little more spark.