Product: Cold Blooded [VHS]
Rating: 3.0
Overly Convoluted Plot Redeemed By Capable Performances.
Produced for Canadian television, BAD FAITH is based upon a novel of the same name, and is scripted by the author of the original, Ian Adams, who has the honour of being the first English language writer commanded by a court to reveal sources of information used as landscape for a work of fiction, an earlier published tale of international espionage. The film and book are fabricated versions of events brought to light during the Lower Mainland Missing Children Case wherein a dozen youngsters were sexually assaulted and slain by Canada's most infamous serial murderer, Clifford Olson, with a petty criminal, or "rounder", being arrested for the crimes he may not have committed. The U.S. video edition is titled COLD BLOODED, a just choice as each featured player is unprincipled or on the verge of being so, with an investigative news writer (Tony Nardi) as the only partly sympathetic figure yet nonetheless unscrupulous in his journalistic selectivity as relating to honesty. Acting laurels must go to Brian Markinson who gives a bravura performance as an informant who could be the key to a law enforcement smoke screen that also involves the local attorney general's office, while there are numerous other fine turns, notably those contributed by Michael Moriarty, John Kapelos, and Paul Coeur. An accurate mise-en-scène is created by the producers of this capably directed and edited work shot in a hibernal Calgary and, despite a snarled plot that nearly obviates ready comprehension, there is a satisfying bite to the dialogue that lifts the noirish affair to a level beyond the norm.