ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 26, 1996 TAG: 9610280008
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JONATHAN STORM KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
``The only person you have to prove anything to is yourself,'' Jimmy Murtha tells a young protege in Sunday's premiere of ``EZ Streets.'' ``Don't get hurt trying.''
Paul Haggis won't get hurt if his brilliant, layered cops-and-robbers series - the best since ``NYPD Blue'' - proves to be just a bit too much for the giggle-hungry TV masses.
One of television's most versatile producers - he's worked everything from ``The Facts of Life'' to ``Walker, Texas Ranger,'' from ``The Tracey Ullman Show'' to the delightful cult favorite ``Due South'' - Haggis is always in demand.
``I like to do whatever I haven't done last, and I like to do something that frightens me,'' Haggis says breezily in a phone interview from his L.A. office.
CBS might sting if ``EZ Streets'' takes the first exit to Palookaville. In a fit of creative bravery, the long-suffering Eye, which can use every ratings point it can scrape up, has ordered 13 hours of ``Streets'' and bought and paid for four extra scripts.
But those who will suffer the most are you, dear viewer, and me.
You - desperate for the fresh air of murky fiction, in which all the characters are as fantastical as they are real, and the plots are just confusing enough to be interesting - will have had your hopes kindled, then smothered.
And I, who have to watch it all anyway, will have one less patch of glimmering darkness in a dull sea of sameness.
If you like ``EZ Streets,'' you love it.
Jason Gedrick, who played the falsely accused movie star in ``Murder One'' last year and is a young outlaw in ``Streets,'' calls it, ``the finest acting opportunity I've had in 10 years.''
Ken Olin, who has concentrated primarily on directing since his run as Michael Steadman in ``thirtysomething,'' plays the lead cop in ``Streets.'' But he also directed the first regular episode, which airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. (on WDBJ-Channel 7) in the show's regular time period, after Sunday's two-hour movie premiere at 9 p.m.
(``Law & Order'' fans: ``EZ Streets'' is worth a detour.)
It's hard enough to take on a new character without having to get behind the camera too. ``I believe in the show,'' Olin says, explaining his double duty in a quick chat between scenes. ``I want it to be known that it was very much something that I was embracing in its entirety.''
Olin and Gedrick are the rugged, handsome leads. But Joe Pantoliano, a Hollywood favorite who has lost himself in more than 60 movies, has the best part.
You must return to 1988, and ``Wiseguy's'' Mel Profitt, to find a better TV villain than Murtha, a ruthless yet honor-bound weasel who keeps a freezer full of dead-men's hands in a secret warehouse, remnants of the soldiers of rival gangs that he's gunned down. He uses the frozen fingers to apply prints to his murder weapons, thus confusing cops and crooks alike.
Kevin Spacey played Profitt. This year he won an Oscar for his part in the mystery-thriller ``The Usual Suspects.'' That film, ``Wiseguy'' and ``EZ Streets'' have much in common.
In ``Streets,'' Olin's character will be breaking all the rules to go undercover to infiltrate Murtha's gang. It's an up-and-coming outfit that has taken over the seedy alphabet streets (A Street and up) of a corrupt made-up place that looks a lot like Detroit and Chicago because a lot of the scenes were filmed there. ``I really intended this to be no city and every city,'' Haggis says.
Gedrick's character is Murtha's protege, a kid at loose ends, trying to get back with his wife and daughter after three years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Following the code of the alphabet streets, he served the time rather than rat-out Murtha and his boys.
There's also a beautiful attorney, played by Debrah Farentino; an old-time gangster (R.D. Call) and the mayor (Carl Lumbley) among the characters.
Ambiguity is the core of ``EZ Streets.'' Is the criminal, living by a strict, if screwy, moral code, any worse than the policeman, who will break every rule of decency - not to mention innumerable laws - to catch the crook?
``I don't know any heroes. I don't know any villains,'' says Haggis, who cites Alfred Hitchcock's ``Strangers on a Train'' as one of the most important influences on him and ``EZ Streets.''
``I want the audience to say first, `Oh, I hate that guy, but I sort of understand what he was doing.'
``Then they say, `Well, he's OK,' and then they truly empathize with him, get under his skin and say, `Yes!'
``And then I will just have him do something so totally abhorrent, they say, `I can't stand that guy.'''
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Ken Olin (left) and Jason Gedrick star in the copby CNBseries, ``EZ Streets,'' premiering Sunday on CBS.