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.
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.