My Review of Ice Blues (2008)

 

Written by Ron McGee

Directed by Ron Oliver 

Timmy: "Some nights I can't sleep worrying that's someone's bashing your brains in."

Donald: "You worry?"

It took me three weeks and in between several other blog entries, but I've come to the conclusion of this quadrilogy of the Donald Strachey mysteries. I've had fun with this series. I wish that Here TV had done a few more of these with Chad Allen and the rest of the cast.

For this last movie, you had Timmy Callahan (Sebastian Spence) in his biggest role so far in the series. He was chasing up money for the Safety Space to help disadvantaged children and a seemingly generous donation from the benevolent Jake Lenigan (Jason Poulsen) resulted in a lot of trouble.

The trouble coming from a dodgy lawyer firm ran by Jake's grandfather Brian (Myron Natwick) and older brother, Eric (Spencer Maybee). They were responsible for Jake's death but so was porn producer and general scumbag, Frank Zaillian (Sebastien Roberts). He got his henchman, Somerville (Adrian Holmes) to hunt down both Donald and Timmy throughout the movie.

There was something about this case that added a bit of a spark to Donald and Timmy. Particularly the latter, who got a bit more reckless and even friskier during the impending danger of Zaillian's determination to get his ill gotten money back. I actually liked this side to Timmy.

I also liked Donald wanting to help the unfortunate teenager Lilah (Brittney Wilson), even when it resulted in him being tied up and tortured by Frank's men. Donald did get to rescue himself but it was cute seeing Timmy try to bluff his way into getting both his own and Donald's freedom before getting a big house shoot out.

Then there was the other plots of the movie. Detective Bailey (Darryl Shuttleworth) had a past with Jake's mother, Joan (Sherry Miller) and history repeated itself with the two of them. There was also a plot with Timmy being reunited with his estranged sister and while it's nice enough, I did find it was a bit rushed by the end.

- This was meant to be the third movie and also is the third book in the series but circumstances pushed this movie to be the fourth in terms of release.

- Kenny Kwon (Nelson Wong) also had a plot about wanting to be his own private detective. Donald didn't approve of his reading material for it.

- I did find the scene where Donald and Senator Platt (P. Lynn Johnson) kind of ganged up on Timmy to be cute. 

- Chronology: It's winter in New York and we got some snow and commentary on it. I think Timmy's meant to be a winter person.

Ice Blues had a chilly backdrop and I would've loved had this been a full on Christmas movie. The plots remained strong, I liked seeing Timmy, Bailey and Kenny in bigger roles and Donald certainly had some action man moments.

Rating: 7 out of 10