Bruce Willis by no means made the bounce from actor to director that contemporaries like Kevin Costner and Denzel Washington did, however he was nonetheless no slouch behind the digital camera.
Moreover some writing on initiatives like “Hudson Hawk,” Willis constructed a singular filmography as a producer. He labored behind the scenes on his personal movies like “Hostage” in 2005 and even helped deliver Steve Irwin to the massive display screen with 2002’s “The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course,” all via his Cheyenne Enterprises with producing accomplice Arnold Rifkin.
The strongest challenge Willis centered on as a producer that didn’t contain him as an actor is close to unattainable to seek out at this time: “Touching Evil.”
The 2004 sequence is led by some main stars proper earlier than they broke huge. Jeffrey Donovan led as Detective David Creegan just a few years earlier than his long term on “Burn Discover” (which additionally aired on USA Community).
Vera Farmiga portrayed Creegan’s accomplice Detective Susan Branca previous to sizable roles in “The Departed” and “Bates Motel.”
Bradley Cooper exhibits up in a recurring function as an FBI agent lengthy earlier than “The Hangover,” “American Sniper” and “A Star Is Born.”
Primarily based on a longer-running British drama, “Touching Evil” follows Creegan as he works his approach again into his job after taking a bullet to the top and a subsequent keep in a psychiatric hospital.
The present embraces its noir roots proper from the get go, opening above the clouds on the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we fall to Creegan, driving and decided, however with intentions we query once we see him stroll right into a home. He pulls out his gun as if he’s skipped the badge half and now he’s simply looking.
The opening ends with Creegan discovering a cat in a room alone after which a masked man getting the drop on him from behind, taking pictures Creegan within the head. The character crashes via a window and takes an enormous fall as appetizer and dessert to go together with his entree mind harm.
One would possibly count on that is the place a narrative jumps to a brand new character, with Creegan serving as a moody plot system. That’s not the case in “Touching Evil.”
“Touching Evil’s” content material was higher suited to a streaming service or an HBO-level channel. It has all of the common workings of a cop drama, however its darkish premise and unpredictable principal character requires the story to veer extra towards the grey strains that may separate good from unhealthy, sane from insane, hero from villain.
Cop dramas in 2004 simply weren’t fairly there but. The stress to catch the unhealthy man and wrap issues up in 40 or so minutes was too huge on the time.
FAST FACT: The invaluable web page JustWatch.com says “Touching Evil” isn’t at present obtainable for streaming.
Creegan’s struggles since taking a bullet are typically performed for laughs (he says it led to a chemical incapacity to really feel disgrace), however it additionally results in among the present’s finest facets. Take into account a recurring character named Cyril, performed by Pruitt Taylor Vince. The previous psychiatric affected person struggles to distinguish between actuality and fantasy and is initially seen as a suspect.
Creegan dismisses the chance outright.
He’s capable of discuss to Cyril, teetering between difficult and accepting his fantasies about interplanetary journey, as a result of he sees himself in him. It’s a revolving query within the present: does Creegan establish extra with the outsiders and crooks than he does his fellow police after his harm, restoration and captivity?
“Touching Evil” was canceled after only one season. It was far more difficult and darkish than USA’s extra straight-forward procedural dramas, and it wasn’t given room to breathe or time to seek out an viewers.
Some errors had been made.
Probably the most obvious is Creegan has a household that’s typically too awkwardly written into the present, serving largely as extra of a distraction than the rest, as if nobody fairly discovered how they play into the plot and it’s nonetheless being debated all through the present.
The 13-episode sequence is a worthy story taken as a complete. A second between Creegan and Branca on the finish of the sequence performs completely into the present’s theme of how treasured the strains between extremes are, particularly life and dying.
Branca: “I typically fear that you simply need to return. Prefer it was higher over there.”
Creegan: “If I believed it was so nice there, I wouldn’t work so laborious right here.”
Some critics noticed one thing particular within the sequence, together with Gillian Flynn, then an Leisure Weekly critic, lengthy earlier than she would write the bestseller “Gone Woman.”
“‘Evil’ is rather more participating, nonetheless, than a mere odd-couple cop present, or perhaps a good serial-killer sequence. Taking cues from the surreality of ‘12 Monkeys’ and the Hughes brothers’ hyper-stylized ‘From Hell’ (no shock, for the reason that brothers), ‘Evil’ has created one bitter little fairyland.”
The pilot episode (promo copies could be discovered on house video) facilities on a toddler kidnapping and it’s a formidable piece of labor. The steamy noir look of the sequence typically completely clashes with the brilliant colours of the town. There are a number of spectacular sequences (particularly for 2004 TV), together with a chase via a home of mirrors at a good (that includes none apart from Cyril).
The standard of the pilot is much less shocking while you be taught that Allen Hughes directed. He returned to direct two extra episodes, and this was when the filmmaker (alongside together with his brother Albert Hughes) was recent off of the documentary “American Pimp” and the Alan Moore adaptation “From Hell.”
He made his bones within the ‘90s with “Menace II Society” and “Useless Presidents.” Hughes retains “Touching Evil” visually popping with out ever being too showy. It’s cinematic and avoids the flat, primary look of different exhibits within the cop drama style from the pilot.
“The primary time I learn the script I knew this may be one thing very particular. I had by no means learn something fairly like this for TV. And after they had been silly to entrust me with the function – I knew they had been as loopy as I used to be,” Donovan instructed PopGurls in regards to the pilot, which was tailored by Bruno Heller.
In keeping with Donovan, there was some hesitation over him taking the lead in “Burn Discover” after “Touching Evil” did not discover a huge viewers out of the gate.
“The community had a superstition, a hesitation at first as a result of he had already been on ‘Touching Evil,’ which had failed. We actually needed Jeffrey, and happily this time he did something however fail,” Fox TV Studios president David Madden instructed The Hollywood Reporter in 2013 as “Burn Discover” was crossing the 100-episode mark.
The solid is justification sufficient for a correct launch of “Touching Evil” at this time, however Willis’s involvement shouldn’t be discounted both. He and producing accomplice Rifkin had been entrance and middle pushing and selling the present.
If “Touching Evil” had managed a run like its British counterpart, there was an opportunity we even may have seen a Willis visitor spot. The actor was by no means above TV, having began on “Moonlighting” at first of his profession and finally shifting into visitor roles on “Associates” and “That ‘70s Present.”
“I’m producing a TV present known as ‘Touching Evil’ that’s actually good,” Willis instructed Black Movie in 2004, including he meant to seem on the sequence sooner or later.
That’s an thrilling “what if” to consider, however fortunately Willis has had a flexible and prolonged profession the place he’s been lots completely happy and unafraid to reply “what ifs” about himself as an artist overtly via his work.
“Touching Evil” was a kind of works, and there’s no cause it ought to be buried at this time.
It took a bullet in 2004, however the present deserves a Creegan-style second shot at rejoining the beautiful insanity of the residing.
Zachary Leeman is a reporter who has been revealed on web sites similar to Breitbart, LifeZette and Mediaite. He’s additionally the writer of the upcoming novel “Nigh” from writer Gilded Masque.