Written in Blood Movie Review

Filmmaking lesson #1: When you have a reasonably big star in your movie, don't keep him locked up in a prison cell for the entire time. I mean, it worked for Hannibal Lecter, but Written in Blood is no Silence of the Lambs, though it would desperately like to be.

Peter Coyote is our hapless jailbird, a cop named John Traveller who's suspiciously jailed after murdering his wife and her lover. Or did he? Maybe he's taking the fall for someone else? No matter, there's another serial killer on the loose, and he's leaving clues behind, all references to Sherlock Holmes mysteries. That's right, we've got to deal with Sherlock Holmes as a plot device. This leaves troubled cop Matthew Ransom (Michael T. Weiss, the poor man's Andy Garcia) to try to figure out the case -- and Ransom seeks help from Traveller, a la Clarisse.

Uh oh -- things don't look too good when signs start to point toward Traveller's daughter Jude (Maureen Flannigan) as the culprit. It doesn't help that Ransom starts sleeping with her, too.

Wow. Written in Blood is alternately by-the-numbers and inanely stupid, full of rote dialogue and coincidental plot devices, bumbling police work, and evidence turning up at just the right moment to keep the absurd plot moving forward. Worse is that the conclusion is visible from miles away, and even though we have no doubt who the real killers are, it still doesn't make a lick of sense why all these people are getting killed. If real police departments were this messed up, we'd live in a state of total anarchy.