MIKE FARRELL and TERI GARR are two fine actors who have a fine chemistry together and elevate this by the numbers wrong man child killer movie way above where it should be but there are serious plot and continuity problems that mar the film, as one reviewer has already noted, and the ending is nothing less than infuriating and actually mystifying.
Here are some of the problems. Farrell buys girl scout cookies from a little girl who is soon abducted and murdered but...what happens to the cookies? Both boxes simply disappear from the story. A farmer who could give MIKE an alibi is suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia and yet is operating dangerous heavy machinery perfectly well. A scene clearly shows the murdered child getting into what appears to be Farrell's car and yet no explanation is given for this and the woman who remembers this fact suddenly never discloses what she just recalled to the cops. Virtually everyone around MIKE is hostile to him as the media attacks him as a serial child killer and yet once he makes up his mind to just return to work despite not knowing the final result of the search for the killer everyone seems to love him again. The scene where the real killer is found is inserted into the film AFTER the scene where MIKE returns happily to work amid supporting staff members... making no sense.
I don't know what movie the other reviewers were watching but I prefer a movie of this very basic sort to make coherent sense. It is even more offensive that this was released in this slapdash manner because much of it is really well directed and builds up considerable frustration and tension as one watches. Mike Farrell and Teri Garr are two of the very finest actors of their era and in 2018 neither are remembered by that many young people for the fine entertainment they offered us back in the day. Teri Garr has suffered in recent years from a debilitating illness and it saddens me so much because her presence on a talk show such as David Letterman or in any sort of film was a guarantee of fun and quality. She brought a sincerity to every film role she ever played. To surround her with such unnecessary carelessness suggests that the film was undergoing script modifications as it was being shot and edited and that the creators and especially the producers didn't care enough about the result. My wife kept saying throughout the film "where are those girl scout cookies and what happened to them?" It's a fair question.
Review of Prime Suspect
