Crossing Lines: Season One Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Crossing Lines: Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

At cross purposes.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 27, 2014

There have been a number of television series through the years that have featured globe trotting heroes or heroines, shows as disparate as the iconic I Spy to the ill fated Shirley MacLaine series Shirley’s World. Both of these shows were notable in that they used actual locations rather than establishing shots culled from stock footage. Many shows, both in the pre-cable and post-cable eras, have opted for that second strategy, with sometimes humorous results (rewatching old seasons of shows like It Takes a Thief or The Man from U.N.C.L.E. where the protagonists supposedly travel to exotic locations and yet the sets look surprisingly similar—not to mention obviously backlot-centric—can be instructive in this regard.) And so we come to the example of Crossing Lines, a show that attempts to actually exploit its use of international (European) locations as it details the efforts of a fictional investigative unit tied to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The series, which aired on NBC in the United States, uses a few actual locations but also subs various Czech locales as civic stand-ins for other European cities. As in days of yore, establishing shots of various European locales are utilized to provide the illusion that the eclectic gang of policemen forming the core of the show is zooming hither and yon, and there’s no denying that the series features some very pretty and evocative locations, but that’s about all that Crossing Lines ultimately has to offer. The series seems downright intent on offering the viewer a veritable grab bag of procedural clichés, along with a gaggle of cops all bringing their own (in some cases rather unlikely) personal “baggage” along with them on their various journeys. Perhaps the oddest thing about Crossing Lines is its very concept: according to Detective Major Louis Daniel (Marc Lavoine), the cop who pitches his idea of an international police force to the ICC and puts a rather disparate aggregation of investigators together, there’s no operational unit extant in the world able to handle crimes the cross borders. And yet the series itself cites the very organization that is in fact tasked to do such work, Interpol. This gambit is especially odd in that the kinds of crimes that are portrayed in Crossing Lines are more or less exactly the types of nefarious activities that Interpol does investigate. The Hague Court is of course more concerned with things like crimes against humanity, which some cynics might aver is what this frequently lackluster series ends up being itself.

There’s a certain haphazard quality to much of Crossing Lines which is evident from almost the first moment of the series. We get an opening narration by former New York City detective Carl Hickman (William Fichtner), which would seem to indicate the show is going to be told from his point of view. But almost as soon as the narration starts, it stops, and the rest of the two part pilot episode spends as much time (understandably) in detailing the backgrounds of other characters as it does Hickman’s. But why, then, start the show out with a voiceover that gives us an “inside” perspective of Hickman when we get none of that with the other characters?

The pilot episode deals with a serial killer who seems to be able to move effortlessly between various European capital cities, depositing victims in each one as he travels. That gives Daniel the opportunity to pitch his idea to his ICC contact, Michel (pronounced Mikel for some unknown reason) Dorn (Donald Sutherland), who pulls various strings with the agency to get approval for an international police force that is decidedly outside of the ICC’s charter. And then the series does something that is alternately laughable and annoying—it repeatedly interrupts the narrative flow of the serial killer storyline to pause while virtually each and every character stops to engage in silly dialogue that supposedly reveals their tortured pasts.

Crossing Lines is one of those shows where the angst of the coterie of characters—and, boy, is there ever angst —is meant to provide some emotional anchoring in what is otherwise a fitfully energetic procedural. What actually ends up happening is a virtually nonstop litany of various problems the various cops are dealing with, which turns Crossing Lines into a pretty sappy soap opera after a while. We have, for example, Hickman, who is recovering from a debilitating injury to his right hand, which has left him addicted to morphine (at least in the opening few episodes). He’s also tracking down the mastermind who shot him years ago, ending his New York City police career. Or there’s Daniel, whose interaction with crime bigwigs led to the death of his young son and the estrangement of his wife. Or Northern Ireland cop Tommy McConnel (Richard Flood), whose incipient anger seems to be stemming from having grown up in a family of “Irish gypsies” who now have a contract out on him, as well as a doomed love affair that ends in tragedy in the opening episodes of the series. It's enough to make one pine for the days of resolute heroes like Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, characters whose personal lives rarely if ever intruded on their episodic adventures.

Despite the fact that several episodes are two-parters, the series also often feels rushed and even illogical at times. Once you’ve watched the two part opener, for instance, go back and take a look at the (narrated) opening sequence, which shows a pretty young woman (and ultimate murder victim) happily donning clothes and a pair of shoes that will become important clues in the case. And yet, once the denouement is revealed, this little dress up party makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Later episodes feature preposterous conceits, and an increasingly improbable set of connections weaving together the various traumas suffered by Hickman and Daniel. Many episodes set up an appealing enough crime, only to reach a resolution in a hurried minute or two as the episode closes.

A lot of American produced procedurals have taken to "geographical" gambits to separate themselves from the pack (a pack often comprised of franchises where the geography is about the only distinguishing feature). The various iterations of CSI and NCIS are perfect examples of this trend. Crossing Lines attempts to expand this idea by giving us some quick tours of various European locales, but as any crime buff or armchair detective will tell you, pretty scenery is not enough to make for a compelling viewing experience.

Crossing Lines: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Crossing Lines: Season One is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This appears to be a digitally shot series, and while it features a typically decently detailed presentation, there's very little "pop" here, other than in selected and isolated moments. Colors tend to be skewed largely toward beiges and browns, and even the occasional flash of something brighter (like the red shoes in the opening two episodes) aren't overly vivid looking. As becomes clear by a cursory examination of the screenshots accompanying this review, this series tends to be all about faces from a visual standpoint. The show repeatedly features the actors in close- ups which do offer some good fine detail (seemingly every stray hair of Sutherland's impressively gray-white beard can be seen). Overall, though, the series has a kind of flat and even soft appearance that works against its use of various European locations. There are no horrible artifacts to report (there is some very minor banding eagle eyed viewers may catch in some fine gradients), and this is certainly not a truly lackluster presentation, but it's similarly not as impressive as might be hoped for.

Crossing Lines: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Crossing Lines: Season One's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is about par for the course for a procedural crime series like this. There are occasional really good uses of the surrounds—one episode featuring a gigantic semi bearing down on a seemingly helpless family in an SUV has good panning effects and nice LFE—but the bulk of the series tends to be dialogue centered and anchored in the front channels. Fidelity is excellent throughout all episodes and there are no issues of any kind to report.

Crossing Lines: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Lines (1080p; 10:09) features some decent interviews with the cast and crew, but is fairly rote stuff. Series creator and show runner Edward Allen Bernero (Criminal Minds) and star Donald Sutherland make some cases for why this fictional unit is "necessary" in terms of how policing is currently done across Europe.

Crossing Lines: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Crossing Lines works in dribs and drabs, but it's a surprisingly unfocused and even annoying series at times. The very conceit that drives the show is inexplicable on its face (evidently even the ICC itself has complained about being linked to an international police force like this), and the show is further complicated by an increasingly preposterous set of back stories that dovetail into each other in equally unlikely ways. The cast is game, and a couple of episodes provide a moment or two of excitement, but overall this series will need a lot sharper writing to cross the line into truly memorable television.