Law & Order (TV Series) In Vino Veritas (2006) User Reviews

Culpability

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 11 April 2015]

This Law And Order reverses the usual process in the investigation because we have a perpetrator before we have a body. Just what is Chevy Chase's culpability is still an issue.

Chase is picked up for drunk driving and among other things he has blood on him that's not his. He's also sloshed to the gills and muttering all kinds of anti-Semitic statements along the lines of Mel Gibson.

The body comes hours later and it's the female and Jewish producer of his canceled sit com. What Chase is willing to concede is that he disposed of the body. Too bad he wasn't smart enough to dispose of the gun. But it's his 12 year old son Jaymie Dornan who confesses to the shooting.

Dornan is in Chase's custody and is heavily influenced by him. And it's Chase who Sam Waterston and Alana Dela Garza want to nail. The issue is how much influence Chase has and can they break it?

Chase in a profession where an ego is a given has one Godzilla size ego. You have to see him in action to appreciate the scope.

Sometimes you blame the apple, sometimes you blame the tree.

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 24 January 2018]

During a routine control, two policeman forced a man to pull over. When he got out of the car, they realized his clothes were dirty, soaked in human blood. At the questioning room, he openly menaced Cassady, showing all his temper; what we figured out is that he is an actor who hates Jews. He didn't remember anything because he was drunk as well as intoxicated by sleeping pills. A Jewish producer connected to him was found dead at the waterfront: a girl who ruined his career. His only teenage son (Jaymie Dorman) played a role in the murder, because he was a racist as well and his sneakers had blood stains that belonged to the victim. Did he deserve to be charged as an adult? Yes he did for the judge, but prosecutors want so hard to convict his father, because he is really a piece of work.

McCoy doesn't think a boy could be compelled to follow father's footsteps, because his own father was a racist cop. Anyway it's not easy to distinguish right from wrong when you are fourteen years old.

Blood

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 6 September 2022]

Any episode for anything dealing with this subject always sounds interesting. The premise is not an innovative one, but it does intrigue despite having traps with how it would be executed. With the risk of it being too complicated and/or with too much going over the head. This is not the first episode to have any form of anti-semitism either as a general theme or in the form of a character, but "In Vino Veritas" turned out to be one of the better faring examples.

"In Vino Veritas" is a very good episode, often quite powerful later on, and has a lot positive to say about it. And very little wrong. It is a case of one half being superior to the other, which can be the case with 'Law and Order' (happened in a lot of episodes actually in all the twenty seasons it ran for), but only because of the superior half being so absorbing and hard hitting. The topic is a very tough one, and "In Vino Veritas" handles it with good balance and no sugar coating.

It does start off a little on the nothing out of the ordinary side with what happens being not much different to similar themed episodes. Milena Govich is still rather bland.

Maybe the conclusion could have had a little more time to unfold, a lot to digest with too short a time to tell it.

However, there is so much that is good about "In Vino Veritas". The production values are suitably slick and gritty, with photography that is reliant on close ups that have an intimacy without being too claustrophobic. The music is didn't come over as too melodramatic or like it was emphasising the emotion too much. The direction is sympathetic while still giving momentum.

The writing is intelligent and although, like the show in general, there is a lot of talk (as always for the 'Law and Order' franchise) it doesn't feel like there is too much or too loose. The story is always compelling that gets quite intricate in the second half, it really hits hard in the second half but doesn't become over sentimental or preachy. No over-generalising either. The acting is near-uniformly great, you know a writer and director are good when they even get a good (well actually great, despite hating his character) performance out of Chevy Chase. Am usually indifferent at best to him so that was a nice surprise.

Concluding, very good. 8/10.