Blood Crime (DVD disc) James Caan, Jonathan Schaech

Originally made for television, Blood Crime is a standard crime thriller with a better-than-usual plot. Seattle detective Daniel Pruitt (Johnathon Schaech) goes out to the country with his wife Jessica (Elizabeth Lackey, Mulholland Drive), who is brutally attacked; hysterical, she accuses an innocent man, whom Pruitt beats severely. But when he finally contacts the local sheriff (James Caan, The Godfather, Misery), the beaten man turns up dead and turns out to be the sheriff's son. Now Pruitt has to find the real murderer before the evidence starts pointing to him. The script isn't subtle, and as a larger mystery unfolds, some elements of Blood Crime are a little too convenient--but the tension between Pruitt and the sheriff remains surprisingly taut, the story zips along, and--for the genre--the character motivations are unusually plausible.