Suture

I loved President Palmer. Mrs. Rodius and I longed for President Palmer to be the real Commander-in-Chief. When he got shot in the throat within moments of his appearance in Season Five, it was one of the most shattering moments of our television viewing lives.

So lamenting the fact that he is now shilling insurance instead of guiding the ship of state through turbulent waters, I dropped a couple of Dennis Haysbert movies into the Netflix queue. See, for instance, my stunningly insightful review of Far From Heaven. Then comes Suture. Mrs. Rodius vetoed it within the first 2 minutes because 1)it's in black and white, 2)it's probably going to be all artsy, and 3) it doesn't have English subtitles. We like having the subtitles on because it reduces the number of times we have to rewind after saying, "What'd he say?"

So I tackled Suture on my own over a couple of nap times. Mrs. Rodius was right: it's too artsy. I never really got over the fact that a key plot point is that the character played by Dennis Haysbert is supposed to look remarkably similar to the character played by Michael Harris. In fact, everything about the story hinges on the two looking nearly identical. I know, there's something profound and artistic about this, something suavely ironic. I know, the tagline is, "A thriller where nothing is black and white," yet the movie is shot in black and white; the Prince is white while the Pauper is black; the Pauper becomes the Prince by wearing his white clothes and moving into his white house; while the Prince lurks in the background, now dressed all in black.

But I couldn't find anything meaningful in it. Or even anything all that thrilling. I couldn't reconcile that irony with the relatively straightforward monologue of the psychiatrist that neatly wraps the story up for us. I guess I'll have to break out the 24 DVD's. The old ones, back before Jack Bauer was a broken former drug addict and torture victim. Back when President Palmer still had us all in good hands.