DVD Review: Jesse Stone: Sea Change

By Jeff Swindoll Mar 6, 2008, 15:57 GMT

Jesse Stone: Sea Change is the fourth in the series of films starring Selleck as Jesse Stone, the former Los Angeles homicide detective who has been fired from the LAPD, left his wife and comes to Paradise, Massachusetts, to start life over again as the New England town’s police chief. Co-starring William Devane (TV’s Knot’s Landing), Kathy Baker (Edward Scissorhands) and Sean Young (Blade Runner), this installment finds Chief Stone ...more

Tom Selleck returns as Jesse Stone for this fourth entry in the series of television movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels.  Stone attempts to keep himself out of the bottle by finding a cold case to interest him and finds that it might still be warm after all.  

Since he doesn’t drink when working a case, alcoholic Sheriff Jesse Stone (Tom Selleck) needs to find something that can keep his mind off the bottle.  Dr. Dix (William Devane), his psychiatrist, suggests that what he needs is work to keep his mind off of the boredom that he’s feeling. 

He asks Deputy Rose Gammon (Kathy Baker) to dig up all the cold cases that are still open.  Deputy Molly Crane (Viola Davis) is on maternity leave and this also is contributing to Stone’s ennui, as well as Luther “Suitcase” Simpson (Kohl Sudduth) still being in the coma that the last television movie ending with him in. 

Stone goes out to the scene of the crime and begins to dig around, literally, and finds some bloody clothes with bullet holes that are deeper than where the body was found.  The teller that was the victim of the crime was the body in question and she happened to work at the bank ran by Hasty Hathaway (Saul Rubinek), so a visit to prison is in order to visit the incarcerated Hasty.

 Not only is Stone pursing this cold case, but a young girl (Mika Boorem) comes to the office claiming to have been raped by a yacht owner (Nigel Bennett) who is in town for the annual regatta.  His guest is Sybil Martin (Sean Young) who takes an immediate like to Sheriff Stone and Deputy Gammon takes an immediate dislike to the yacht owner. 

A hood shows up to tail the Sheriff and this tips Stone off that gangster Gino Fish (William Sandler) might be looking to find the loot that disappeared during the robbery and murder of the teller.  Stone also finds some unexpected consequences as he investigates the case and the remaining family of the dead teller.  

Sea Change is the fourth in the series of tele-movies based on Robert B. Parker’s novels.  I really enjoyed the other two films that I reviewed in the series.  This one does continue the fine tradition but it feels a bit weak compared to the other two. 

Tom Selleck is still excellent as the flawed, hangdog-faced Stone.  The supporting characters seem to get a bit of short shrift in this episode as Molly is out on maternity leave, “Suitcase” spends the beginning of the film just out period, and Devane is not in it for long at all.  When “Suitcase” does come out of the coma he appears to be some sort of idiot savant and appears to have gained some knowledge of the future. 

The mystery really isn’t that complicated and you’ll probably spot the twist in the end.  I was pretty sure that a certain character was going to be more involved than we suspected and this mainly had to do with the way that that particular character was interacting with our main character (don’t want to spoil it for you if you don’t get it). 

Sean Young basically has a gloried cameo and I’m not sure if this character shows up in other novels, but as Young’s been in the news for some kooky behavior you’d think that she might not have the leave out of rehab to show up again.  

Sea Change is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Sadly, there are no special features - which are a shame since it would’ve been nice to hear from Selleck or even author Parker to get some more insight into the films or character.  

Sea Change sees another glimpse into Stone’s world and it’s good to see the series again.  However, this mystery seems a bit light compared to the other two but it’s the great characters that we tune in to see, but even some of them seem to have been given little work to do in this entry.  

Jesse Stone: Sea Change is available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.