Dramatically Different

Like a lot of people, I enjoy a good mystery when it isn't happening to me. I especially enjoy the shows about real-life mysteries, so it should come as no surprise that if I can't find anything else to watch I will often wander passed channels like "Investigation Discovery" to see which crime they are doing a one-hour special on. I think my favorite part of these shows are the 'dramatic reenactment' scenes in which actors will show you what investigators think happened while a voice-over narrates the action. I find them so interesting because they are often hilariously over-acted, as the people in them know their dialog will not be heard and therefore feel the need to try to show emotions in the most obvious ways possible. I do feel a little bad for the actors involved because you know when they were spending thousands of dollars to make it through drama school they had visions of starring as Shakespeare on Broadway or in a big-budget Hollywood movie, not overly-pantomiming getting stabbed by a jealous boyfriend in front of a crew of freelance cameramen just to get on television for a couple minutes. (That being said, if there are people who have to spend even one second working on a script for those actors to use, I feel even worse for them.) But at least they are showing a little pride in their work, because it doesn't always seem like the people in charge of casting are quite as diligent.

I'm continually surprised at how often the actors in these reenactments look nothing like the people they are portraying. I'm well aware that unless the producers can get the people originally involved to help recreate the scenarios or they have an identical twin it will never be a perfect match, but sometimes it doesn't even feel like they are trying. For example, the other night I flipped over in the middle of a story about a series of murders which happened a few years ago. One scene had the dramatic reenactment of the murders and the next had actual police footage of the suspect. The two people in the scenes were so far apart that I didn't know they were supposed to be the same person. The actor was balding with a goatee while the actual suspect had a full head of dark, thick hair and no mustache of any kind. There was nothing remarkable about the person they were profiling, so I simply couldn't get over the total lack of effort to even make them look remotely the same. It was as if the actor hired to be the stand-in couldn't make it to the set that day and the crew was forced to use the sound guy instead. But even in that scenario they still could have tried a little harder. I'm assuming these shoots don't have a huge budget, but they could at least have spent $2 on a disposable razor and had the guy shave.

Making it worse was the way they kept bouncing between footage with the actor and footage of the actual killer. Like I said, these things are never a perfect match, but most of the time these show won't reveal that fact until the very end of the show (if at all) when they show pictures of the people involved. I've always wondered why they wait so long and now I realize it is probably so you pay attention to the evidence and don't spend 45 minutes wondering how hard it would be to find an actor more suited to the part. By constantly switching between the two it only served to shine a spotlight on how much these two people looked nothing alike and it was all I could focus on. I don't think anyone watching these kinds of shows expects perfection, but I think they at least want you to make it look somewhat close and finding a guy with a little hair on the top of his head seems like it would have been an acceptable level of minimal effort. The only saving grace is that at least most of the time the producers will do the person the favor of casting someone better-looking to be the stand-in. I know one person has had the benefit of a make-up artist while the only time we see the other is usually in their mugshot (not a moment anyone is going to look their best), but the difference is usually pretty staggering in a positive way. Not here, though.

Now, I admit that I am a man who pays extra attention to details (probably to a fault) and most likely this kind of sloppy work bothers me more than it would most other people. But I know I'm not alone because the issue of casting in any kind of biopic is almost always a touchy subject and the more beloved a person is the harder that role is to fill. Recently people were up in arms when it was announced that Zoe Saldana would play the lead role of famous jazz musician Nina Simone. But, the subject doesn't even have to be that famous for people to have an opinion about a casting decision. I think we have all mentally cast our life story in movie form and while we all prefer to play ourselves, if that isn't happening we may as well get a world-famous and award winning actor to bring our story to the masses. At the very least you want someone who will make you look good. I'm not saying the suspects in these kind of shows should get a say in who plays them on TV, but if the people working on them behind the scenes ever want to graduate to the big time they need to step up their game. Otherwise their role will be played by someone who cares.