America, Inc.

Some friends were enjoying a basketball game when a stray bullet coming from the next hotel room crashed the TV set. Their neighbor was shot dead. Thanks to computer in which he surfed the net the night before, detectives figured out the victim spent time with a hooker (Natalie Gold) before being killed, but she left him safe and sound before the accident. The victim was a former US Navy discharged some years before to work for a private security company (in few words, a supervisor mercenary). There, he had hard feelings with several soldiers for something happened in Iraq where he was deployed: a guy was beheaded during an ambush and fellow soldiers blamed him for the accident. This case is well beyond NY jurisdiction for what a person related to the case confessed on the stand. Anyway his reasons were more personal than patriotic....

Did regular US soldiers as just as important as private soldiers for the Jury? I don't think so. I remember the movie "Dogs of War" that talks about these private soldiers. I liked very much this episode, surely the better in the 15th season.

Have loved the original 'Law and Order' for a long time, particularly the earlier seasons, and consider it my personal favourite of the 'Law and Order' franchise. Did like the idea for Season 16's "America Inc", though it is not new territory for the show and has the dangers of heavy-handedness and one-sided-ness. 'Law and Order' do have a good track record at making something great and more complex than expected out of stories that don't sound out of the ordinary on paper

"America Inc" is a very good episode, if falling a little short of being great despite having a lot of great things individually. Like a lot of episodes in 'Law and Order's' late seasons and actually 'Law and Order' in general, it is a case of one half being superior to the other. But not because one half is bad, just that there is one half that executes the storytelling especially even better. Though perhaps it could have done a little bit more with the subject covered, which is a challenging role and a brave one to tackle.

Beginning with the good, it is a slickly made episode, the editing especially having come on quite a bit from when the show first started (never was it a problem but it got more fluid with each episode up to this stage). The music is sparingly used and never seemed melodramatic, the theme tune easy to remember as usual. The direction is sympathetic enough without being too low key on the whole.

The script is generally taut, with little fat, and intelligent. The story does intrigue and is tense and moving, the policing scenes are solidly done and the legalities are accessible and intriguing. On the most part, it is not one sided and McCoy and Melnick's chemistry helps makes the legal portions riveting. The moral dilemmas of the case are handled nicely. The acting is very good from all, with Pablo Schreiber standing out as a real snake of a character.

Did feel that "America Inc" is a bit routine to begin with, with the investigation not being as complex as the second half.

Melnick has been written better and more tactfully, how badly she mismanages the case seemed out of character for her and her views on the war are laid on too thick and makes her come over as biased. Absolutely agree regarding McCoy being spot on with what he says about conflict of interest.

Overall, very good. 8/10.

The use of mercenaries in our Middle Eastern military ventures is called into question here in this Law And Order story. A mercenary representative from one of those private outfits is murdered in his hotel room in New York City. The trail leads to a pair of perpetrators, another mercenary played by Pablo Schreiber and the brother of one of Schreiber's fellow mercenaries who was killed in a road side ambush by presumably Al Queda. The brother is Adam Scott and he's the only true innocent in the whole show.

Because Schreiber has something to trade the case is taken out of Fred Dalton Thompson's office and Schreiber goes off to the Army Intelligence for something he has to trade. Not so lucky is Scott who's left holding the bag.

Schreiber is a true snake, but Tovah Feldshuh is guilty of gross mismanagement. Sam Waterston is quite right when he says that Feldshuh has a conflict of interest and that both defendants should have had separate counsels. Feldshuh who is usually as honest as she's sharp let her political views against the Iraq War cloud her legal judgment.

Some collateral casualties from Iraq are shown here.