DVD Review: Intelligence - Season One

With Intelligence, writer/director Chris Haddock takes a theme that was always a part of his early Canadian procedural Da Vinci's Inquest - the political use and misuse of information - and makes it the central concern of his story. Divided between two struggling leaders, Vancouver crime boss Jimmy Reardon (Inquest's Ian Tracey) and police inspector Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), the show involves an uneasy alliance that is formed between the two after Jimmy temporarily gets a hold of files identifying all the snitches currently on the payroll of the city's Organized Crime Unit. This info could blow Mary's shot at moving up from head of the OCU into a larger law enforcement allied with American interests ("Globalization has been a boon for local organized crime," we're told), so, naturally, she's eager to contain it.

Unfortunately for both our protagonists, there are others determined to undermine the duo's tenuous relationship. Foremost among these is Mary's tightly clenched OCU underling Ted Altman (a surprisingly subdued Matt Frewer), who's eyeing Mary's job and sees pinching Reardon as his big ticket. Jimmy, whose primary source of illegal dollars is marijuana, is facing a rival gang of bikers looking to seize his territory. At the same time, Jimmy's doofus brother Mike (Bernie Coulson), a guy so inept he can't even drive point on a drug shipment without getting stopped by the cops for speeding, has plans to create his own small dynasty - even if it gums up Jimmy's business in the process. At the same time, our hero's histrionic drugee ex-wife Francine (Camille Sullivan) is nattering on the sidelines, looking to get her piece of the action.

Though Intelligence has its small share of crime family drama, the series isn't meant to be Haddock's answer to The Sopranos. If anything, it's closer to The Wire in its examination of the behind-the-scenes machinations which serve as ongoing distractions from the job. When a mole, for example, is found within the OCU, the first thought on everyone's mind is finding ways to spin it to their political advantage. When that mole turns out to have been connected to a double agent with ties to the American intelligence community, the double- and triple-crosswork grows even more pronounced.

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is a Books editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy comic fat acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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