Karmic rewards?
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- October
- 27
You know how on the Oscars someone invariably wins for a performance he gave three years ago? That’s how I feel about Simon Baker’s success on CBS’ hit “The Mentalist.”
On the one hand, Baker should’ve become a big star with his previous Eye Network outing, “The Guardian.” And he’s been an attractive presence in movies good (the delicious race-reversal comedy “Something New”) and bad (the ultra-violent, beyond-awful, post-Civil War study “Ride With the Devil,” a rare misstep by Ang Lee). So I’m glad Baker has gotten his due.
On the other hand, “The Mentalist,” which airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays, is lightweight fare at best, particularly when compared to the dramatic complexity of “The Guardian.” In “The Guardian,” Baker starred as self-centered, coke-addicted corporate lawyer Nick Fallin, whose community-service sentence took the form of child advocacy. Baker played him with an admirable lack of sentimentality. You understood that Nick was an immature, selfless jerk. But you also realized that the single-minded drive that made Nick such a disaster in his minimalist private life was precisely what made him a successful attorney, and that he was willing to use that gift in service of the children who were now his clients. In one particularly riveting episode, Nick was assigned to a girl who had been abused by her father. Nick was able to extricate her from that relationship by making the father’s life a legal hell.
By the end of the episode, the father thought of Nick as the devil incarnate. Viewers were inclined to agree.
Of course, the psychic and physical damage suffered by Nick’s tiny charges was a mirror of his own. Here Baker played beautifully off of Dabney Coleman as Burton Fallin, Nick’s disapproving daddy and head of the firm where Nick served as a scheming associate. Burton was as gruff, distant and misunderstood a father figure as you were likely to see on TV. (He was also another unsympathetic Coleman character who proved unpopular. See “Buffalo Bill”.)
Perhaps it was the realism of the performances — or of the complicated father-son relationship at its heart — but “The Guardian” never got the ratings or the kudos it deserved.
In “The Mentalist,” Baker is back at his stock-in-trade — the rapscallion in need of redemption. His Patrick Jane is a charlatan psychic whose charade has cost him and his loved ones dearly. But while this could’ve pushed him to the brink in a “House”ian manner, “The Mentalist” keeps things light in what is basically yet another police procedural. It doesn’t help that Robin Tunney, as the agent assigned to mind Baker’s idiosyncratic crime consultant, is playing mommy to his bad boy.
But such is karma that what you send out in the world comes back to you. Baker has the talent, charm and looks of a leading man. And so, “The Mentalist.”
Let’s hope some good karma befalls NBC’s “Life,” which I understand isn’t doing too well at 10 p.m. Fridays and is moving to 9 p.m. Wednesdays, where it will serve as the lead-in to the returning “Law and Order” (Nov. 5). If ever a show and a star deserve to be a hit, it is this series and this star, Damian Lewis.
The British actor should’ve become a household name after terrific performances in HBO’s “Band of Brothers” and PBS’ “The Forsyte Saga.” As Charlie Crews — a wrongly imprisoned, brutalized cop who returns to the life he once knew and that will never be the same again — Lewis is quirky, funny, maddening, heartbreaking and always devastating.
Like “The Mentalist,” “Life” is also about the unbearable lightness of being. But “Life” knows how to balance light and shadow. Essentially, it’s a question of tone.
“Life” strikes just the right one.
This entry was posted
on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 4:16 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
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