Legacy of Lies

Stars: Michael Ontkean (Twin Peaks), Martin Landau (Crimes and Misdemeanors), Eli Wallach (Article 99, The Godfather, Part Three). When Chicago homicide detective Zach Resnick (Michael Ontkean) investigates a drive-by shooting that looks to be mob-related, the trail leads him to an unlikely participant: his father Abraham (Martin Landau). Father and son have a tete a tete, and Zach learns that the dirty laundry in his family stretches all the way back to his grandfather's clothesline. Seems that granddad bedded down with the mob, Abraham followed in his footsteps, and now Zach has to make a decision. What might have been a truly incisive portrait of an unusual relationship between father and son is given the basic TV-movie treatment here. Ontkean looks confused for most of the film (which makes sense since his character's motivations are fairly cloudy), Landau does the hand-wringing bit in extremis, and Wallach only appears in a couple of scenes. Not the worst film of its type by any means, Legacy of Lies is still not quite the "impressive work of art that many will want to see again and again" according to The Hollywood Reporter. It's just an average run of the mill TV thriller. [Note: the "R"-rating apparently derives from one slightly implausible scene in which the bad mob guy goes fishing indoors--hooking one of his large cronies through the neck and reeling him across an entire boardroom table.] Audience: Non-discerning thriller fans.