"Perfect Crime" is far from perfect, but this made-for-cable movie proves that the USA Network has come a long way.
Time was when the movies USA produced were as bad as bad could be. Awful junk like people running from killer cats. (And that's no joke - that was actually the plot of one USA movie.)But USA has been doing a better job of late. While "Perfect Crime" is certainly no masterpiece, it is at least as good as your average ABC, CBS or NBC movie - and better than a lot of them.
This true-crime drama, which premieres Wednesday at 7 p.m. on USA, follows the exploits of civilian Naval Investigative Services officer Joanne Jensen (Mitzi Kapture) as her near-obsession with a murder case turns into a landmark legal decision.
Jensen is called in when Marine Capt. Darnell Russell (Jasmine Guy) - a model officer - disappears. Her investigation reveals that the captain was leaving her husband, alcoholic ex-Marine Bob Russell (Nick Searcy), when she vanished.
From the beginning, Jensen suspects the husband. And the circumstantial evidence against him begins to mount - including a computer disk that includes Bob Russell's "recipe for murder."
But there's one big problem - despite the best efforts of the Naval Investigators' office and the FBI, Darnell Russell's body cannot be located. And, to that point, no one had ever been convicted of murder in the United States without the recovery of a body or other physical evidence.
Selma Thompson's teleplay allows the story to unfold as it would for Jensen. Bits and pieces of the story come from different witnesses, and their testimony is re-enacted on the screen.
(Except for a brief opening bit, Guy's only appearances onscreen come after her characters has already been killed.)
The narrative is a bit rushed in the final minutes but still works rather well.
And this is not an anti-military film. It's made clear that Bob Russell was an aberration in the Marine Corps, and Jensen - the heroine of the piece - is the wife of a Marine officer herself.
"Perfect Crime" marks the return of Kapture to television. She left the USA series "Silk Stalkings" a year ago to have a baby. Her talent jumps off the screen. Don't be surprised if one of the broadcast networks snaps her up for another series before long.
And Searcy is very good as the incredibly arrogant Bob Russell. He's a menacing presence throughout the teleflick, and he's so sure he'll can never be convicted that he drives Jensen's obsession to convict him.
Particularly at a time when the broadcast networks are in the midst of rerun season, this isn't a bad time for cable subscribers to turn their TVs to the USA Network to catch "Perfect Crime."
(The movie repeats Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday, July 19, at noon.)