Exiled (1998)

As Good As It Gets

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This movie was awesome. If you love the characters from law and order then you will love this movie. Also making an appearance was Paul Guifoyle from CSI:Vegas. I love Chris Noth and thought his character was fantastic. He was thoughtful and crazy all in one. They set up the scenes and the plot wonderfully. I loved seeing all the different people from various shows and thought the characters were well thought out. They should make more movies like this in the future with more of the people from CI and SVU in them. Like Ice-T!! So with out ruining the movie for you if you like Law and Order please watch this movie. Even if it is only for Chris Noth!! It really is worth it for just him.

To begin, apologies to fans of Chris Noth. He is and always will be the best junior detective to grace the original Law & Order series. That said, however, I can only call this film a disappointment. It may appeal to those viewers who are die-hard fans of Mr. Noth or seasons 1-5 of L & O, but as a longtime fan of the original show, I found this film rather flat. It came across as a showcase for Mike Logan, focusing on his desire to rejoin his old precinct, yet the ending ensured that Logan would never again be seen on L & O. The movie drove a stake into the hearts of those fans who wanted Mikey back, and was both cavalier and even cruel in its treatment of longtime characters.A junkie-prostitute was murdered and her body mutilated to prevent identification by the police. Logan used this homicide as a launching point to move back up the ranks after his demotion and exile (hence the clever title) to Staten Island following his punching out of an obnoxious city politician. He befriended the murdered girl's sister only to use her to help him rejoin homicide; he returned to his old stomping ground just to stomp on everyone's toes. Logan's confrontation with his old partner Briscoe was flat and pointless. Why on earth would Lennie stick his neck out when there wasn't a thing he could do for his former workmate? He was just a disgraced recovering alcoholic detective who had to start from the bottom up years ago, or had Mikey forgotten that? And the Van Buren hostility was lame, too; she and Logan often butted heads, but they also worked together to solve many crimes, and they at least seemed to mutually respect each other. Apparently, that was forgotten when this plot was written. As for McCoy, he didn't much like Logan but he worked with him the same as with any cop from the Manhattan area, but Mikey wasn't from there anymore and Jack owed him nothing. At least that was the feeling the movie gave, which seemed wrong, for McCoy wasn't a vicious or cold man; in fact, he was very passionate about his work but in Exiled he just seems icy and predatory. Rey Curtis was about blown off and Mikey treated him like he wanted to have a hosing-down contest with him to see who was the better man.Lennie laughed at an incredibly nasty joke about the deceased girl, which, given his own daughter was brutally murdered, seemed woefully tasteless and out of character. But then, no character was spared to make Logan look good. By the end of it, Profaci was revealed to be the perp for a truly contrived reason: FERTILITY TREATMENTS, which he couldn't afford on his cop's salary. (We all know that wanting those pesky kids leads to all manner of evils!) Poor Profaci had always been one of the most down-to-earth and professional cops from the original show, and to see him treated thus was heartbreaking.At the end of it all, Logan was left with nothing: no promotion, no girl, no friends except maybe for his current partner. It was an empty finish to a pointless movie that seemed only to serve as a finale---not a grand one, either---of Noth's L & O character. Maybe it was intended as a pilot but it didn't come across that way; it felt more like an end than a beginning. Exiled seemed like Noth's way of saying, "I am NOT Mike Logan anymore!", much in the same way Leonard Nimoy used to vehemently deny he was Mr. Spock after Star Trek was cancelled. In summary, this was a grim foray into the obsessive side of a character we used to admire but, by the end of this film, grew to dislike and even pity. We will most likely never watch it again.

My wife and I are rabid Law and Order fans, so when they reran this the other week on my day off, I was excited to see it for the first time. I think the series is generally as good as ever overall (some ups and downs), but I agree with several other reviewers here that the classic years were those with Chris Noth and Jill Hennessy.I have to say, having skipped it when it premiered, I really enjoyed the film. I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to see the familiar settings with a new pair of eyes (Noth's), to the point that I could forgive it some character inconsistencies (e.g., I had a hard time recognizing Lenny Briscoe). It also explained for me where Profaci went (other than over to the Sopranos).Some remarks on comments by other viewers:1) The latina maidThe numerous cast changes this series has undergone has given ample opportunity to show that cops don't like having to work with new partners. Logan didn't know there would be a spanish-speaking maid, and he didn't know Rey, so why would he bring him along?Also, I can't speak for New York, which I wouldn't be surprised to find has a realistic policy for dealing with multilingualism, but we must remember that the L&O franchise is overseen by Dick Wolf from Los Angeles. Here in Occupied Mexico, a shocking number of the non-latino minority (particularly cops) display what I can only describe as clueless pride in knowing NO spanish whatsoever.2) Staten IslandHaving never been there, I can't speak to the endless disdain other New Yorkers express toward S.I. as a boring backwater. It's immaterial to the plot, however. From early on in the movie, it's made clear that the reason Logan is working petty crimes is that in his banishment, HE WAS NOT ASSIGNED TO HOMICIDE. 'Kay?If you are a huge Law & Order fan, I recommend catching this film when it comes around again. Otherwise, I don't know what your interest would be.

I found the movie to be a total farce. In the first place the movie makes it seem that there are no homicide or other serious crime committed in Staten Island,and so Detective Logan is bored and homesick for Manhattan. Give me a break.... In the second place when he goes back to his old command investigating the murder that was committed in the precinct's vicinity,they leave behind the only so called Spanish speaking detective that had taken Logan's place when he was so called, "Exiled" to Staten Island, and go to the crime scene, [the rundown hotel],to investigate. All together there are about five or six detectives, and not one speaks nor understands Spanish. Now we get to a crucial scene where Detective Logan asks the maid, "This is a new mattress. Where is the old one?" The maid answers, "No comprendo. No hablo Engles." Logan bends his head to the right, puts both hands to the right of his head, making a sleeping gesture, and says, "Sleep. Donde el matre old?" "Oh, el matre viejo", says the maid. "El matre viejo esta en la basura. Tenia mucha sangre." It takes the hotel keeper to tell Logan that apparently what she is saying is that the mattress had a lot of blood on it, and it's outside by the garbage. You mean to tell me that Chris Noth, working all those years in the area of New York City, could not tell the Producer Dick Wolf, that in this scene he wanted a Spanish speaking officer, in order to make the movie more realistic. All New York City precincts, have Spanish speaking patrolmen as well as detectives. We are in the '90s. I enjoy watching a good movie whether it's fiction or not, but I don't like a movie that tries to pretend that what it is showing is the way it is. If Chris Noth is to continue to write for the movie industry, I suggest he take a little initiative in trying to give credit, where credit is deserved.