Pavement Reviews

Pavement is movie with a head full of concrete. Featuring an offensive pro-euthanasia premise, a comically unconvincing villain, some of the most boneheaded police work in the history of cinema, and some jaw-droppingly sloppy plotting, the film is watchable for all the wrong reasons. There's even a no-nonsense black police chief (Barry Henley) who scoffs at Sam Brown's (Robert Patrick) unorthodox methods and gives Buckley Clarke (Lauren Holly) one last chance to nab that killer, but not before telling her, "I pray that you're right." By then, it's obvious that this fake San Francisco police department (there's absolutely no sense of place to the film) will need more than prayer, as it takes more than half the film's running time just for Clarke to determine that there's a connection between the murderer's victims. It hits her like a bolt from the blue. Of course, it's ludicrous the way Brown pops up at every crime scene in the city, while professing to have a hard time adjusting to the urban environment. And while the leads smirk and scowl and make not-so-clever sarcastic remarks with equal aplomb, Patrick fares slightly better, because at least he's not wearing too much makeup. The title makes the most sense if it refers to the general stiffness of the performances. What really sinks the film below the level of your typical low-budget straight-to-video policier isn't its lame plot or acting, but its theme. Pavement goes beyond demonizing the disabled, seeming to advocate that infants born with severe birth defects should be smothered in their cribs. It's odd that the film supports the point-of-view of its psychopathic villain, but this can be seen as evidence of a defective mind at work.