A few years after Chris Noth left the cast of Law & Order on television, he and Charles Kipps came up with the idea of a television special to reunite him with his audience. Chris is in a precinct in Staten Island, under the jurisdiction of Dabney Coleman, and with Dana Eskelson as a partner. He desperately wants to get back to his old territory, so he fudges the details of a homicide so he can crack the case and earn a transfer.The opening credits will reassure you that all the Law & Order cast members you know and love join Chris Noth in the movie, but in reality, they have glorified cameos. Jerry Orbach has maybe eight minutes on screen, Sam Waterston and S. Epatha Merkerson probably have five minutes each, and Benjamin Bratt has less than two minutes. But it's still fun to see them—it wouldn't be Exiled: A Law and Order Movie without them! If you love the series—really, who doesn't?—you'll probably want to watch this TV movie. It's extremely similar to the episodes, minus the absence of any courtroom scenes. There's a murder, colorful suspects, snappy banter, and a few one-liners that make you groan and chuckle at the same time.

On the surface this has all the ingredients of being a fairly impressive TVM since it's directed by Jean De Segonzac who's best known for his work on gritty TV dramas like OZ and HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET and does contain several well known names in the cast like Sam Waterston , Ice-T and Tony Musante . The basic bones of the story featuring a dead prostitute along with a subplot involving a bent cop on the inside does sound interesting but to be blunt EXILED is very disappointing Much of the blame lies at the feet of the director De Segonzac . This type of story should mirror his previous work , it should be dark and bleak but for whatever reason everything is filmed in broad daylight which means there's a lack of atmosphere . Mind you night filming is expensive so perhaps the director didn't have much of a budget to work with in which case it's someone Else's's fault . I should also point out that despite the premise the story plays out in an entirely boring manner which could cure mild insomnia It's not the fault of anyone from this movie but when EXILED was broadcast on my regional ITV station this morning we had to endure superimposed sign language ! I kid you not and I hope to never see this kind of distraction ever again

All right, all right, I was ecstatic as the next L&O junkie when I heard that Chris Noth would reprise his role as Mike Logan. I looked forward to this movie for months, lying to every friend, family member, and creditor I have that I was absolutely, positively, unavailable that particular Sunday night. I even told my roommate that he was going to have to live without the X-Files for 1 week.Mulder and Scully, you never looked so good.It wasn't that this was a bad movie. It's that it took the easy way out in many cases, which is something Law and Order never does. It was a paint-by-numbers cop drama, and didn't try to be anything else.I won't spoil the plot by pointing out the various pointless twists--let's just say that anyone with a nodding familiarity with the genre will see the ending a mile away. What really struck me was how hard the writers were trying to make this a "one-lone-cop-against-the-bureaucracy" story. That might have worked with brand new characters, but we've all watched Mike Logan, Lennie Briscoe, Anita Van Buren, and Jack McCoy for years. We know how they're going to react to situations and to each other. Logan's difficulties with McCoy in this film are plausible--they were never all that friendly during their one year together. But his confrontation with Briscoe seems forced, and the mutual animosity with Van Buren is way out of left field. Logan risked his career for her at one point--over Briscoe's objections. So how exactly does she label him "self-absorbed"?All in all, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The characters and the actors both deserved better.

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.