What I did find unusual for Stone Cold, is the revealing of the killers in the beginning of the movie. In normal crime mysteries, the detective is working up to finding the perpetrators. However, in this movie, we have a clear confrontation with both the investigating officer and the killers.

Stone Cold has a lot of gritty elements, and viewers will appreciate these elements in future installments of Jesse Stone. Not everyone will be able to palate these realistic elements, but they do add to the realism of the movie. Combining such gritty performances with the actors, if we had more well-known and accomplished actors, this movie would be stellar, but unfortunately, we haven't heard much of them, other than Tom Selleck (Jesse Stone), Mimi Rogers (Rita Fiore) and Stephen McHattie (Captain Healy).

Tom Selleck has proven himself over the years as Jesse Stone, and has adapted to the role rather nicely. Since this is the first of several Robert B. Parker adaptions for the television screen (Selleck is currently filming the fifth movie called Jesse Stone: Thin Ice), viewers might be a little cautious due to the character development and overall flow of the movie. Regardless of the imperfection of the movie, this is still a good feature to watch when you're looking for something a little different. I suspect subsequent titles will gradually get better as the actors get used to each other. As such, I think a Recommended is a good start to leave room for improvement.

Another positive note about this first installment of Jesse Stone. The cinematography is very good, and looks great on a widescreen television. One can only hope an HD version of this and future Jesse Stone movies will grace the shelves at retailers.

Finally, I don't want to spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, so I'll be cryptic here. I wish one of the actors who died in the movie, was not killed off so quickly. This reason will present itself in my next review of the second Jesse Stone film.

The Audio

• Dolby Digital 5.1 was fine, and was mostly beneficial during musical passages within the movie. I could remember very few scenes where the 5.1 was necessary. I really like the theme music as it is calm and peaceful, but at the same time delivers melancholy and sadness, which are all parts of Jesse Stone's life.