Review by Adam Boult
Stars Simon Baker, Robin Tunney, Amanda Righetti, Tim Kang | Created by Bruno Heller
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £39.99 | Runtime 1025 minutes | Directed by Chris Long & David Nutter
Every TV detective needs a decent quirk or gimmick, something to differentiate him or her from the scores of other TV detectives vying for viewers’ attention. Monk has his OCD, Miss Marple the whole little old lady thing, Wallander his Swedishness, and so on.
The Mentalist is Patrick Jane, reformed confidence trickster and expert in mentalism – the use of hypnosis, observation and psychology used by stage performers to feign psychic powers. Having quit a successful career pretending to read minds and communicate with the dead, Jane now works with the California police, using his talents to track down killers. Basically, it’s Derren Brown meets Law & Order.
As detective show gimmicks go, The Mentalist’s is pretty similar to Lie To Me, the Tim Roth vehicle where he stars as an expert in body language. However, The Mentalist is quite a lot lighter in tone, occasionally so light it risks teetering into silliness; the makers can’t be blamed for not knowing that, to a UK audience, the title would mostly bring to mind Alan Partridge’s memorable cry of “No way you big spastic, you’re a mentalist,” but this doesn’t help matters.
Neither does the casting. While Tim Roth brings some serious weight to Lie To Me’s often hokey storylines, The Mentalist’s lead (Baker) is an alumnus of Home & Away and Heartbreak High, and although compelling enough in this role as an infuriating, rather smug genius, Shakespearean he ain’t. Moreover, the investigative team he’s attached to is suspiciously young and attractive- Jane’s boss is the Robin Tunney, perhaps best known for her role in teen witch drama The Craft, here playing a hard-arsed, no-nonsense type whose clashes with Jane betray the kind of simmering sexual tension that’s de rigeur in this kind of thing.
However, it’s a decent enough show, and does everything you want from a detective series. Each case is wrapped up neatly in its allotted 45 minutes, there’s some nicely handled sub-plots running through the series, and Jane’s smart-arsed brilliance at solving crimes is always just on the right side of irritating. If it’s trying to be this decade’s take on Columbo, or Quincy, or Diagnoses Murder, it’s not doing that bad a job at all.
EXTRAS ★★★ Cast and crew interviews, a documentary on mentalism, some deleted scenes, and a gag reel.