Originally a novel by Scott Turow, Reversible Errors was made into a TV miniseries.  The four hour (with commercials) televison event was broadcast in May of 2004, and now it has made its way to DVD.  If I had to use one word to describe the show, it would be 'uneven.'  The show contains some great performances, and some not so great ones, is riveting in parts but drags in others.

Larry Starczek (Tom Selleck) is the prime investigator of a particularly gruesome triple-murder.   He finds Romeo 'Squirrel' Gandolph (Glenn Plummer) with a necklace that was stolen from one of the victims, and pressures the mentally challenged black man to confess.  An open and shut case.  Gandolph is sentenced to death.

Seven years later, Romeo is just weeks away from his execution date.  Arthur Raven (William H. Macy) has been assigned to handle the final appeal.  He doesn't really think that he'll do any god, but he goes through the motions.  But when Raven discovers some evidence that Romeo may be innocent the clock starts ticking.

Not everyone is happy that Raven is digging up this old case.  Starczek is sure that he arrested the right man, and will go to any lengths to see that he isn't released, and the original prosecutor, Muriel Wynn (Monica Potter) is afraid that his release will ruin her career.  So Raven enlists the help of the original judge on the case, Gillian Sullivan (Felicity Huffman) who has just been released from prison herself after being convicted of taking a bribe.

The plot is full of twists and turns as Arthur tries to uncover what really happened.  The interesting angle that this film has, is that it tells this story of crime and the law through two couples, Starczek/Wynn and Raven/Sullivan, who are responsible for upholding the law and enforcing it.   This is a nice way of exploring the story, but it only worked to a certain extent.  At times this method seemed to suck the life out of the movie, and the film really seemed to drag at times.

Macy and Huffman, who are married in real life, were brilliant in their roles and were the best part of this movie.  I have long said that William H. Macy is one of the best actors working today, and this movie goes a long way to prove my point.  He can give a character dimension by delivering the most sedate lines in a realistic fashion.  Felicity Huffman does an equal job, and the scenes where the two of them are together are great.

Unfortunately I couldn't say the same for Tom Selleck.  I think he is a good actor, but he just didn't shine in this picture.  The scenes where he and Monica Potter were together made the film slow down and upset the pace.

The mystery itself was fairly intriguing at first, with some genuine surprises and interesting twists, but it got a little tired by the end.  Running at nearly three hours, the movie is a little long and could be improved by some drastic editing.  The last half especially seem to move at a slower pace.  If they had cut ½ and hour to 45 minutes out of the running time, the film would have been much better.

Audio:

The DVD comes with a 5.1 mix as well as a stereo track.  The dialog was clear in both tracks, and the background music was reproduced well.  There isn't any hiss or distortion, making this a very adequate sounding DVD.  There are no subtitles.

Video:

The full frame video was pretty good.  Being a recent show, the image was clear with the colors accurate.  Some details did disappear in dark areas, but otherwise there isn't anything worth complaining about.  There was some aliasing in the background, but it wasn't a significant problem.

Extras:

The only extra on this disc is a commentary track by director Mike Robe and author of the book that the movie is based on, Scott Turow.   This was a good commentary track, with both participants filling the time with interesting stories on the production and differences between the novel and the film.  One point that I found note worthy was that some nudity was cut from the film.  Originally there was some female breasts that were to be broadcast, but in the aftermath of Janet Jackson's breast bearing during the super bowl, the scene was cut.

Final Thoughts:

This is a good, if flawed movie.  William H. Macy and real life wife Felicity Huffman give a pair of fantastic performances.  Unfortunately co-star Tom Selleck isn't as engaging.  The plot moves quickly at the beginning with a lot of evidence being revealed in short order, but it slows down in the second half.   Worth watching, especially if you are a fan of Turow or Macy, but it is best left as a rental.