CSI Miami, Five
The Secret Millionaire, Channel 4THERE are times when crit-icism is meaningless (shut up at the back, I'm talking specifics here). David Caruso's performance in CSI Miami is such a case, so extraordinary th
at it's beyond any petty distinctions like "good" or "absolutely abominably awful" in having evolved into an art form in itself.
I believe that at one time, when he made his name in NYPD Blue, Caruso was thought of as a reasonable actor. He was pretty good in King Of New York, he played Broadway – so he must, one presumes, have been able to create realistic characters. But perhaps when his movie career failed to take off, something happened, something as mysterious as the crimes on CSI, but with a lot less microscopic evidence.
For now Caruso is a parody of a satire of a stereotype of himself as Horatio Caine, not so much speaking his dialogue as letting it escape. And what dialogue it is, too: his now-traditional cheesy one-liner just before the credits last night, in the first of the sixth series, is typical. A probation officer has been murdered, perhaps by one of the parolees he dealt with. "Two thousand clients … two thousand suspects," oozed Caine, for some reason stating this as smugly as if it were someone else's problem.
But it's the facial expressions which really sell it. He has a range of oddly noticeable tics: smirking, licking his lips, nodding sagely, narrowing his eyes, and all this between every sentence. Sometimes between every word. It's strangely fascinating, but absolutely nothing like the way any-one actually talks – at least, it may be, but it's not like how people talk on television. Caruso seems to be drawing inspiration from the silent movies.
The other characters in the CSI team have a thankless task, being less mannered but completely overshadowed. They pottered in and out delivering their lines with as much bland sincerity as possible, yet unless Caruso is in the picture, it's very hard to care.
Speaking of caring, it turned out that one of the 2,000 suspects just happened to be his long-lost son, fathered while undercover on "some special task force work in Pensecola" (that's the first time I've heard it called that). This might have been a dramatic twist, had they not oddly chosen to reveal it in the first minute of the show before flashing back, thus draining any tension from Caine's unusual interest in the boy.
I'm not sure I believe it anyway: this bowlcut-headed teenager didn't display any of his father's distinguishing traits, barely even smirking when finally cleared. "Why do you even care?" he whimpered. "Because," said Caine, taking off his sunglasses knowingly and narrowing his eyes sagely, "it's my job to care." No, it's his world – we only live in it.
Money, money, money, as Meryl Streep recently declaimed, must be funny, in a rich man's world. James Benamore is certainly rich, with an estimated worth of £77 million. He's not that funny, un-fortunately, being not just a secret millionaire but a rather shy one, which meant that this instal- ment of the money-for-nothing programme was a bit dull.
Going undercover as a volunteer youth worker in Moss Side living on £86 a week ("I spend that on lunch," he said – yeah, and the rest of us in a few months too, if food prices keep rising), Benam-ore was touched by all the good works he found. And the public-spirited good workers were touched too, by all the money he gave them at the end, as he revealed his true identity. All very nice, but not that interesting.
The full article contains 628 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
