Murder at the Presidio (2005 TV Movie) User Reviews

Routine Mystery

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 10 August 2005]

"Murder At The Presidio" is a routine mystery. Lou Diamond Phillips plays James Chandler, a detective who is looking into the murder of a woman on a navy base. When he gets too close, the Army becomes an enemy for him.

Lou Diamond Phillips is very charismatic in the role. Jason Priestley is underused. The story and characters are mostly one-note. You know their every word and action ahead of time.

It's a little more suspenseful then "The Presidio" but that's not saying much.

In the end: If you like LDP, it's worth seeing, but that's it. "Renegades" or "Boulevard" are better choices.

For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Typical whodunit plot

[photobob749-1 · 6/10 · 20 August 2005]

The movie was fine as far as the genre goes. I prefer military themed movies to at least portray members of the military accurately. There is no way an Army officer in uniform is going to have any facial hair other than a mustache. Special Ops sometimes do have beards, etc, but not garrison stationed officers. The Motor Pool PFCs were too old to still be at that rank. If they were that bad of a soldier, they would have not been retained in the Army. Actors who are hired to portray soldiers should have a haircut to match the role. Lou D. Phillips introduced himself as a Warrant Officer, yet I heard him referred to as Lieutenant. I still haven't figured that one out yet. The movie wasn't bad, but this reviewer found the military inaccuracies glaringly distracting.

Home invaders on an army post

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 21 January 2019]

Too many rather obvious errors in military matters prevent Murder At The Presidio from achieving any great status. Still as a murder mystery it's not a bad one. It is set in the final days of the Presidio in San Francisco being an operational military installation. And in those final days a murder is committed.

The wife of Sergeant Martin Cummins is murdered by home invaders which is a really odd concept other than the fact that the housing for the base personnel is nearly empty. Only one other unit was occupied in the building that Cummins and his wife lived in.

Lou Diamond Phillips plays a CID investigator and apparently as such doesn't have to wear a uniform. He's already assigned to a case involving theft at the Presidio of military equipment, but wants this homicide. The head of the Military Police Eugene Clark doesn't want him and that leads to a running conflict throughout the film. Phillips gets more than moral support from Victoria Pratt another MP.

The two cases at first not connected get connected during the course of the film.

Some nice supporting performances also come from Leslie Esterbrook as Cummins's partying mother, Daniel Roebuck as the base commander, and Jason Priestley as very hostile brother-in-law to Cummins.

About halfway through we know who did it. After that it's just a question of gathering evidence. Canadian locations stand in for the Presidio as it is now a national park and shooting there would be problematic.

Lots of goofs and errors, but the basic plot is a good one.

They should have hired an army consultant

[JohnTouchton · 3/10 · 8 September 2006]

Item 1. I am a former Infantry Officer and was astonished at the number of military mistakes I saw. It detracted from the movie, which in my opinion was weak and showed little imagination,e.g. Lou Phillips was a CID Warrant Officer, but is called "Sir" and / or "Lieutenant" a number of times. W.O's are referred to as "Mr." or "Chief" without exception. The MP Captain treats the CID W.O. with disrespect. Warrant Officers carry a lot of clout. Senior Warrants I knew personally would speak to general officers on a first name basis.

Item 2. The MP Captain had a partial beard...That is a wrong answer. His Captain's Bars were on incorrectly and he had no branch insignia. His beret had a unit crest instead of his rank and in general, his demeanor was unbecoming of an officer.

Item 3. I like Victoria Pratt a lot, but on the cover of the DVD she has the flash on her beret over her right eye instead of her left eye. And when she left the EM club, her blouse was unbuttoned and flopping. No MP would ever walk around like that, especially a female MP. They're working in a traditional man's role and all that I have met are sticklers for professionalism.

Item 4. The Captain and his men abuse the CID WO and then the enlisted guys knock him down and kick him. That is crazy! Assaulting an officer is a Court Martial offense. Give me a break!

Item 5. The Major has a Combat Infantryman's Badge, which is conceivable if he branch transferred from Infantry to the MP's but which only further stretched plausibility.

Item 6. MP's discharging full automatic weapons and killing several people including civilians would have had the FBI all over the place. Why didn't that happen? This movie was a slap in the face of veterans in general, but especially disrespected Warrant Officers and the Military Police Branch in particular. Rating it as a 3 was a gift.

Solid, if unremarkable, murder mystery

[gridoon · 6/10 · 3 July 2007]

Not a movie that will go down in history, but if you're looking for something to keep you interested for 90 minutes, you could do a lot worse than watching "Murder at the Presidio". It's a murder mystery set at a military base, and even though the script (based on a true story) gets too soap-opera-ish at times, the handling is solid in a somewhat old-fashioned way. Lou Diamond Phillips portrays the determination of his character to get to the truth convincingly (when someone asks him "You'll find the murderers, right?" and he responds "Yes. I will", you believe him), and Victoria Pratt is fit, sweet, sexy and beautiful - very close to my perception of the ideal woman (she may be somewhat miscast though - she looks too strong for what happens to her character at one point). The rest of the actors are mostly unknown, but they do the job. As does, in general, the film. Other reviewers have mentioned inaccuracies in the depiction of military life, but the majority of viewers will neither notice them, nor care. (**1/2)

Made for TV

[mvuksanovich · 1/10 · 29 August 2005]

Lou Diamond Phillips sadly signed his name to this train wreck of a "movie". Phillips does his best to make lemonade from this lemon of a script, but it proves fruitless. The unknown supporting cast laughably overacts. The writing is awkward & the characters are unsympathetic.

Phillips plays a military detective, and former MP, who comes to the Presidio (the former military base in San Francisco that was closed and converted into a national park in 1994, not to be confused with the Presidio in Monterrey, CA which houses the Defense Language Institute) to solve a murder. His love interest, a female MP who looks extremely awkward in her over-sized uniform, proves way too easy, so it is difficult to sympathize with them as individuals or as a couple.

The plot boasts TV-ready predictability, and the production was obviously made for TV- there were even breaks in the movie to insert commercials! What a disappointment.

My advice...skip "Murder at the Presidio" and watch a "Law & Order" rerun instead. The plot will undoubtedly be more interesting.

TV bummer

[winner55 · 1/10 · 25 November 2007]

Another reviewer put it best with the title for his review: "made for TV" One of the problems with made-for-TV movies is that some producer or network executive comes up with a concept and then hires by commission the writer and director; and if they are 'professionals' - in TV-industry terms, which has just about nothing to do with film-making, although the two industries do feed on each other for talent - they will slog through a couple weeks production whether they care about the concept or not.

The script here is most to blame - while 'professional' enough so that it's difficult to quote bad lines, it is a completely moronic story, utterly unbelievable - without knowing anything about the 'true story' this hypes itself as being 'based upon', I can guarantee that the one true thing you can say of this film is that it is not based on a true story. People with personal problems do not make good detectives; and one has to get into the story by assuming that every officer and non-com at the Presidio is engaged in a cover-up, or some other form of corruption? And talk about gratuitous - i.e., wholly unnecessary (and exploitatively filmed)- sex scenes! As if these characters had ever shown any real interest in each other in the first place.

However, as with most anything made for television, I was able to have this run in the background while doing something else (cleaning house), so I didn't have to pay much attention to it. That's the only good thing I can say about it.

This is a murder alright, but the script is the victim

[garundaboink · 1/10 · 15 November 2009]

This movie should be watched by anyone who wishes to learn from bad examples. God, it was a struggle to watch this. When the end came, it was a mercy, like the end to a long bout of cancer. This is a murder alright, but the script is the victim.

Let's get into the problems. As a Canadian, I could spot this piece of trash as from Canada right away. I was standing in line at the bank once, a long while ago and this guy in line behind me starts talking about the government grants he was receiving to make a film. "Doesn't matter what trash we make, so long as it's Canadian." As a taxpayer, it gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

This script was not reviewed by seasoned professionals. It's got too many clichés in it that are obvious. For example - the cop with mental problems. This cliché is done so badly, we only find much later why he suffers from guilt that drives him to drink. When we do, it's hard to imagine all that self-destructing behaviour coming from such a complicated set of circumstances. I'm self-destructive because my mother baked a vanilla cake on a Wednesday and I like chocolate on Thursdays. The cause and effect are so disjointed in time we wonder, "Why are they telling us this?" The conflict cliché. The Captain of the MPs claims jurisdiction in a murder case. I was half expecting the newspaper boy to rush in and claim jurisdiction. "I delivered newspapers on this base for years buddy, so that corpse is my responsibility. Back off!" The love interest cliché. The woman MP quickly jumps into the sack with a stranger she just met. Now I ask you, is that love? Why not insert a porno movie at this point for two minutes and then go to commercial. It would make as much sense.

Overacting: Okay, lots of it here, from the MP Captain to the mother-in-law, it's hot and heavy coming from the lesser roles, playing for the cheap seats. If you want to be noticed, why not be noticed for doing a good job instead of hamming up the role. It's level jumping, and it's not permitted.

Miscasting: Jason Priestley is cast in a very minor role here wearing his Perry Como smoking jacket. Sound the trumpets, a star has arrived. I kept expecting something to happen. He must be in this for a reason. Nope. Hoping for more, like a hanging participle, it simply was an incorrectly cast.

Also, while we're on the subject, that danged Texas sheriff warnt from nowhars near the Lone Star boy. To my ear, he hails from somewhar up in Wisconsin. Might as well have cast a London Bobby in this role.

Factual Errors: Hire a goddamn technical consultant, you cheap pigs. Soldiers shave, they wear the correct cap badges and don't call non-coms "Sir". If you can't afford one, watch another film where they do! I'm surprised you didn't have World War Two Shermans driving around in the background. People watch LAW AND ORDER for 20 years because it's technically well written. Lawyers write for the show. Take a page from their notebook. At least do some fact checking.

Crap Cinematography. Filmed using 70's vintage video instead of film , obviously not quality digital when witnessing the colour bleeds, faded backgrounds and motion blur. The director was doing the "you-are-there" jiggle cam for the first 10 or 20 minutes of the film and gave up on it. You can't do Jiggle Cam with cheap video. The executives probably had to have their eyes checked after watching the daily rushes. Lot of HDTV's probably get returned to the store after watching this.

Believability. Nothing kills a story molecule quicker and deader than the .44 Magnum Bullshitter. It's a huge cannon of a gun that shoots blobs of diarrhea onto the pages of the script. The smell can repel you for several pages of story and take your mind away from what's happening on the current page. The sheriff in Texas picked up the phone and called San Francisco based on a badly drawn composite. "Yeah, we've got your guy. I was picking my ass looking for something to do and I noticed the striking similarity between one of our rape suspects and your stick-man drawing here and I thought, what the hell, let's call up the Presidio for a laugh." Also, don't sheriffs in Texas talk with a drawl. Why not cast Tevia from fiddler on the roof. Ah, but I repeat myself.

And finally, I'm bringing this critique to a close not because I have run out of things to say, but because I'm tired. If you feel exhausted too, then you know what this film has in store for you. Lou, you hitched a ride on a wild turkey here, son. At least that part of it was entertaining.

Good flick if i do say so myself !!!

[dswann76 · 9/10 · 23 September 2006]

I helped make this movie up here in Canada and I had a really great time in doing so.

I was an extra and provided the military transportation for the movie and getting the takes down was fun and interesting.

I would work for John Fasano any day I think he did a really good job rebuilding this movie. Lou, Victoria, and Jason and all the other actors were fantastic and would love to work with them again. The staff and production crew did and awesome job making this movie possible and my hat is off to you.

Thanks again for a great time and for meeting all the people I met in these travels.

As for people who haven't really watch this movie i suggest you do

Murder at Somewhere Else

[mreyno02 · 3/10 · 1 March 2014]

I had to go back to the beginning of the movie to view the stock footage again to make sure this movie wasn't about the Presidio of Monterrey. It turns out that not only was the story really about the Presidio of San Francisco, but that also it 'missed it' in at least three main areas, in a made-for-TV production. As noted elsewhere, the comparison to realistic military living is off. I could only wonder with a dropped-jaw how a single Military Police corporal had such extravagant living quarters, and consider with rolled-eyes how the military post was inaccurately depicted as having a guarded entry gate. Further, none of the sets were created to accurately show the real beauty of the post, it's landscape makeup, or how the buildings were really constructed. Sure they showed enlisted family housing very near the water, but it is a beach and not near the yacht harbor. Finally, interesting talent was cast for the telling of the story, but beyond that the film direction demonstrated a lack-luster effort at best. After viewing it, the movie left me feeling disappointed, betrayed, and even a little upset about the loss of time spent viewing it. So frankly, as also noted in another place here, this crime story really about a place that is not at the Presidio.