Exiled: A Law & Order Movie

 
reviewed by: Charity Bishop
        

Chris Noth was not pleased with how his character Mike Logan was written out of the Law & Order franchise, and proposed a wrap-up episode with series creator Dick Wolf. Exiled is less a Law & Order continuation as it is an exploration of the character. It brings closure to the fans.

Banished to Staten Island after slugging a corrupt politician on the steps of the courthouse after the man walked on an acquittal, Detective Mike Logan (Noth) is stuck on low-profile domestic disturbance cases. While on the ferry one morning he observes a floater and reports it as a case on their side of the river. The body, a young woman, is loaded with drugs and newly pregnant. Her attacker seemed bent on destroying the baby as much as the mother. Logan's current commanding officer wants him to dump the case in Manhattan, where all the leads are pointing, but he and his new partner Detective Frankie Silvera (Dana Eskelson) are determined to stick with it. Logan believes it may land him back on the fast track to handling homicides, and Frankie is just relieved to finally have a partner that doesn't object to her being a woman.

The floater's identity is that of a prostitute and stripper in the slew of sleazy bars on the outskirts of his old haunts, and their shakedown of a local strip bar produces a warning from Captain Cragen (Dann Florek) to back off -- one of their suspects is believed to have hired a dirty cop in the 27, Logan's old precinct. While attempting to bring about justice for the sister of the deceased, Logan enlists the help of Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) in solving the case, but it soon becomes apparent that Manhattan doesn't want his assistance. Determined not to give up, he locks horns with District Attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) in an attempt to form a task-force between the two jurisdictions, in an action that will make or break what's left of his career in law enforcement. The response to this film among the fans is widely varied. Some of them absolutely love it, because it focuses around Mike Logan, one of the more popular of Wolf's characters, and others felt it was sub-par to the rest of the series.

There's a nice repertoire between Logan and Briscoe, and guest appearances by Ray Curtis (Benjamin Bratt), and Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson). Unlike the series, there are no courtroom scenes and the only appearance by lawyers is a nice little bit of antagonism shared between McCoy and Logan on the courtroom steps. ("Do you have to work at annoying people, Detective, or does it come naturally?" "It's a gift.") It does focus more on the underhanded side of Manhattan -- the strip clubs, seedy hotels, and prostitutes that prowl the streets at night, but at its heart its about one man's attempts to redeem himself from a tragic mistake. Fans of the show will take a guess at what the content concerns are like, but they still bear mentioning.

Logan and his partner are forced to enter a strip bar in order to question suspects. Other scantily clad females pole dance and wriggled around in the background; one comes on to Logan, and starts to dance for his partner before they tell her to sit down and talk to them. The owner of the club refers to his girls as "pigs," because they're just "meat to be sold." He is later busted in the office, and a girl pops up from under the desk, indicating oral contact. There is blood at crime scenes -- a mattress soaked in it, a body with his head bashed in, autopsy photos. Hotheaded policemen get into fist fights. Detectives make suggestive jokes about dead hookers. Logan becomes involved with the sister of the deceased, but it's not implied they do anything more than kiss. Language is minimal. It's a film that you won't enjoy unless you have come to know Mike Logan. The first time I saw it, I wasn't too fond of it (or him), but once I had played catch up on Mike's five years with the franchise, I found my attitude completely different.

While it's true that the cameos of series regulars seemed thrown in there just to legitimize the story, the film's original premise becomes more interesting with time. It starts out with the body of a hooker and accumulates in an emotional showdown between cops in the 27th precinct. This is Logan's true farewell.