Today's Review: The River Murders

I'm impressed with the casting of this movie, they've managed to get three leading men whose faces just don't look right.

Ray Liotta plays detective Jack Verdon, a man who is currently happily married, but spent quite some time beforehand bedding a lot of ladies, a fact that becomes apparent when a lot of his former squeezes show up dead. With Verdon as a prime suspect, he is stropped of his gun and badge, but as the odds stack against him he must take the law into his own hands to find out who is out to destroy his life.

Well, it certainly does sound exciting, and the movie does pull it off to some degree, but the whole aspect of Verdon being a suspect seems to be largely ignored. No one really believes he did it, so we're just left with jibes from investigating FBI agent Vukovich (Christian Slater) about how many women he's slept with.

There is a certain thread running through the movie though, and a trail of clues to follow, to quite a well thought out conclusion, but The River Murders was a direct to video affair and it shows. The acting is okay, and the plot just kind of plods along, with scenes never wandering outside of the safe, low budget police thriller. Still, they can't all be blockbusters, and The River Murders is a good effort. It just could have used a bit more polish.

My rating: 3/5