I'll tell you why so serious

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I really enjoy the Jesse Stone movies. Here is a man who became a drunk because of his cheating and now divorced wife. She cheated on him and he turned to booze as a solace. He gets a last chance job as police chief in a small New England town. In this particular movie he gets hired back as the chief after two officers are killed in an explosion. One is the son-in-law of the town council president, the other was the infamous and not very likable D'Angelo. The council president manipulated the firing of Jesse and the hiring of his son-in-law as the chief. It is seemingly poetic justice that the boy is dead and Jesse is back in charge. William Devane is back as Jesse's shrink. He is very good in this role. Rose and Suitcase have left the force because they just didn't like the new chief. He contacts Suitcase, who still has the weird sixth sense, on a fishing boat run by his father but Suitcase stays with his Dad on the boat. This is not what I expected. I thought Rose and Suitcase would both come back to the force. As the case widens more suspects come in to the scope of the investigation. Saul Rubinek is in the film as arestored city councilman after his release from prison. Now I thought his crime was a felony and would thus preclude him from holding office. Turns out Sal has been the driving force behind the drug trade in the area. William Saddler does an excellent job of playing the bottom feeding crime boss Gino Fish. Of course everything comes to a crescendo conclusion and Jesse solves the case to the chagrin of a few people. At the very end of the film Suitcase returns to the department. I sure hope there are more Jesse Stone movies in the offing.

This series is awesome; a great depiction of flawed characters with the politics of a small town.With extensive background in law enforcement, both my wife and I appreciated and found this to be very accurate, despite the Hollywood influences. Cops, unfortunately, do deal with many of the same problems; alcohol, marriage, and relationship problems. Tom Selleck does a great job with Robert Parker's character. You can feel the loneliness and isolation in Jesse Stone.In addition, the depiction of ugly death scenes is right on; no restraint. This is a great way to spend 90 minutes.

This latest in the Jesse Stone series contains little suspense as the only new character introduced in the anthology turns out to be the perpetrator or at least one of them. Part of the problem is that you really would have to see the previous film to get into what is going on here.In that previous film Tom Selleck who steps on a lot of toes in the small ocean town of Paradise, Massachusetts got fired as police chief and the snot nose son-in-law of one of the town councilmembers took his job. Well in this episode the new chief and another officer are killed in a most grisly fashion, a bomb thrown under their police car blows them up. You'd think it was Afghanistan.In fact Selleck who is brought back as chief thinks it's not terrorism and so does Stephen McHattie from the Massachusetts State Police homicide squad. They think it's local and personal and it turns out it is.One problem Selleck does have is that he IS the Paradise police because the others quit when he left and the two deceased were the previous force. He could have used a little help, but Kathy Baker and Kohl Sudduth just aren't ready to return.These two hour Jesse Stone movies give Tom Selleck a chance to get into his deeply flawed alcoholic character. The enforced idleness in his absence as chief have put a lot of temptation to return to his drinking ways.Fans of the series and of Selleck should like this film.

Why do I always end up feeling conned & duped after watching a Jesse Stone episode? I go in full of high expectations, like going into a first rate restaurant: terrific menu, great atmosphere, beautiful surroundings. And then...little bitty tastes & teasers.I've always been a fan of Tom Selleck. He's a great-looking guy with a wry sense of humor & he's aged well (although I would gently suggest he have his hairdresser lighten up on the dense blacks - looks too phony). But he spends most of his time in this episode (& the last one as I recall) standing around doing a lot of thinking & brooding & posing. Selleck wears clothes better than any actor since Gary Cooper & he has some pretty snazzy outdoorsy threads in this one. But I wound up feeling like I was watching an elaborate Eddie Bauer commercial.As for the plot...what plot? Pieces of plots. Pieces of characterizations. Snatches of dialog. In the end there were so many plot pieces left hanging & unexplained it I thought this episode might be half of a 2-parter. But as far as I can tell from IMDb this is a one-shot. So what's going on? A new mystery genre? You give viewers a few pieces of the puzzle & let them fill in the blanks?Come on, Tom, your fans & followers deserve a whole lot better. We know you can do it, that's why we keep coming back.