Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TV Series) Scared Crazy (2005) User Reviews

How did that square with what you did in Guantanamo?

[Mrpalli77 · 9/10 · 18 September 2017]

Shrinks should help people to restore their senses. They have to heal them from psychotic behavior. What if one of them experienced what happen in Guantanamo interrogation room? Technique such as expose inmates long time in the dark, with out loud music. It could make you feel cranky because it goes against a psychologist ethic. Anyway she tries to use this kind of procedure with a regular patient (a shy nerd unable to hurt a fly) and the outcome is easy to figure out. The poor guy (DJ Qualls) didn't deserve to be treated like a guinea pig.

Anyway I can't imagine an angry neighbor throwing a vending machine at me just because I like listening to the house music or my baby boy cries out loud.

The Writers Disappoint, D'Onofrio Does Not—He is a Delight

[skywritinghotchner · 8/10 · 7 February 2016]

I will not go into whether the writers exploit and/or dodge certain issue. I will write about what I know for sure:

1. ccthemovieman-1: I read your reviews—I dig your dig-deep writing style, from CSI New York to Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Your writings walk me through episodes I am about to watch: well, I am binge-watching these days and only catching up on shows after I graduated college 3 years ago (yeah, lots of surprises of course, for example—D'Onofrio is old, and let's not get into the look of "Friends" Cast)

2. I am missing out on a masterpiece: Vincent D'Onofrio's passionate work as Detective Robert Goren—I have only started watching by December 2015. D'Onofrio is a strong, silent, shy actor—the type that's misunderstood most.

3. If you are angry with the Writers for this particular episode, then you should write about the Writers—and the Producers' decision to air it, instead of referring to a mind-numbing noise such as whether/or not D'Onofrio suffered from psychotic breakdowns. Even if it is true—with the world-class work that D'Onofrio pulled off to bring Detective Robert Goren alive—a sharp, subtle, searching-mind brilliance: it is expected that the work will take its toll sometimes. Remember Heath Ledger?

4. D'Onofrio: I would like to thank you. Your work as Detective Robert Goren is an unparalleled cinematic celebration of your haunting- hypnotic eyes and heroic deliverance of dialogs with—in many, many, scenes, deep-distinct human touch (http://criminalmaster.proboards.com/thread/3481/actor-line-airport)

Breaking down someone

[radarfirs7 · 7/10 · 24 March 2021]

This reminded of some Training I learned in the Military. Most don't know, but Solitary Confinement over a Long Period of time can break most, many are learning this during late 2019 to 2021. The Secret to stay sane is doing "Useful Stuff". It has been found those with a Deep Faith. The Faiths with "Caring" - Forgiveness, Prayer, Studies if allowed, loving the Enemy - last the best - example the Movie - Ben Hur decades go by, and his Mother & Sister are thought dead and someone else finds them in a Room, where the door to the room has a brick wall and only a Slot at the Bottom to slide a food tray into the room. Yes, this is "Fiction" story, but many Missionaries have been treated like this and how this movie came up with the story idea. (I am pretty sure it is Ben Hur?). Faiths with the other side, of Anger, revenge, hatred, etc are those which also needs others to keep each other in line - so they can be broken easily over time in solitary confinement. I learned this in POW Training.

So this episode was hard to watch, so i was glad at the end how they used a Closed Window to break the Psychiatrist / Psychologist - I can never remember which is which. And DJ Qualls character passed.

Crazy but not too scary

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 2 December 2020]

Absolutely love Goren and Eames' pairing, and Goren especially is the most fascinating of all the 'Law and Order: Criminal Intent' leads. Do prefer them over the pairing that they alternated with throughout Season 5 Logan and Barek, and prefer and am more used to them as characters. Their episodes on the whole in Season 5 are better than the Logan and Barek-centric ones, although to me not every episode of theirs in the season was great.

"Scared Crazy" was one of their weaker outings and one of the season's lesser episodes. Don't think it is anywhere near as bad as has been made out, and while the criticisms others have of "Scared Crazy" are actually agreed with by me the way they have been expressed in my view has been somewhat over the top. It is not a great episode, with plenty of good things but with a fair share of problems, but it's worth a look especially if you want to see every episode of 'Criminal Intent'.

The good things are going to be started off with. "Scared Crazy" is well made, intimately photographed and slick with no signs of under-budget or anything. The music didn't sound melodramatic or too constant and the direction is accomodating while still having pulse. Some of the writing is thoughtful and smart, with enough tautness to avoid it from rambling. The playing off between Goren and Eames is so entertaining and how the truth is gotten out is quite intensely done.

While the story is a long way from perfect, actually found it heavily flawed, it does have engaging and tense moments with plenty of surprising twists and turns. Vincent D'Onofrio is always a joy, and here he is wonderful in one of his most impassioned performances of the show in a way that frightens and moves. Kathryn Erbe is more subtle but just as involving and in character. Their chemistry is a pleasure. The supporting cast are good, with Jennifer Van Dyck being particularly impressive.

For all those good things, sadly "Scared Crazy" is let down significantly by two major things. Despite some moments, the writing is not its usual taut or smart self. Instead feeling very one-sided (the episode makes it very clear from the outset what its point of view is with lack of tact and offers no other side), pretty stilted (especially in most of the final 10 minutes) and patronising (namely Goren's dialogue towards the end). With the subtlety of an axe.

Despite some moments, like the script, the story is not always as involving as it could have been with some dull stretches early on and parts that could have done with more clarity. It is also very heavy-handed, with the politics agreed being too heavily emphasised and rammed further down the throat. And with an on the whole ending that makes one feel preached at. While well played, other than Pynchon the characters lack development.

Concluding, not a bad episode but a long way from great. 6/10

overt politics ruins good suspense

[mttiro · 6/10 · 15 June 2020]

Far too often during the GWB years the writers of Dick Wolf's franchise Law-and-Order shows allowed their personal political views, and their animus against GWB, to intrude on their scripts, to the detriment of the show's quality and the viewer's enjoyment. That is the unfortunate case in this episode, a story that begins well with a high-tech mystery but quickly degenerates into political sermonizing about the evils of torture.

Even at the time the events were happening--during the Iraq War and its immediate aftermath, 2003-11--there was plenty of room for vigorous debate about the place, or non-place, of torture in the military toolbox of a nation like the USA supposedly committed to ethics and morality. So the appearance in this episode of the issue of torture is not the problem. It's the one-sided nature of the dialogue. There is no discussion, no debate. The message is clear--the policy of the GWB administration, and military, is wrong, and even "evil." No other POV is tolerated or allowed. No discussion is permitted.

How the plot winds its way to this final conclusion will be left to the viewer to navigate. The episode contains the usual healthy helping of twists and turns, questions and non-answers, that keep Detectives Goren and Eames hopping and forced to apply their best skills toward a final solution. But their articulation of that solution seems stilted and wooden, not police-like at all. And that's b/c it came from the writers pushing their political agendas. Dick Wolf should've dialed the overt political statements back a notch or two.

It would come up short

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 2 February 2017]

I have to say that I was a bit confused by the episode here. Not sure in the end if Major Case and the New York County DA's office wasn't going to come up short if this ever got to court.

An employee of one computer company is murdered and the murder in fact is taken from the film Sleepers where a huge cart is pushed down on the victim as he was on subway station stairs.

This episode has nothing to do with business rivalry. The perpetrator D.J. Qualls is a brilliant programmer who has issues, extreme paranoia. Treated by Jennifer Van Dyck, Qualls is used as some kind of lab rat for her other job, working for the army at Guantanamo interrogating prisoners.

Qualls is recommended for psychiatric care which was the humane and right thing to do. But I doubt that Courtney Vance will get a conviction here for any number of reasons despite the efforts of Goren and Eames to link Van Dyck to the murder.

Just won't wash in real life.

Would Prefer A Crime Story

[ccthemovieman-1 · 3/10 · 24 July 2008]

This was the worst propaganda piece I've ever seen on this show in five years, and I've seen a few. They are always Left Wing, of course, because that's where Law & Order and its star actor lean heavily but usually it's not this heavy-handed.

The whole show turned out to be - not a story about a murder by some computer geek against other one from a competing company - but a tirade against "torture against terrorists at Guantanamo Bay." The last 10 minutes was nothing but one speech after another by Det. Groren" (Vincent D'Onofrio who, reportedly, needed psychiatric help after the last Presidential election!). It was so in-your-face that it was embarrassing to watch. Where was the subtly?

Memo to Law & Order writers: give us the crime case, not your politics.

Anyway, DJ Qualls was good as "Robbie Boatman," as was Jennifer Van Dyck as "Dr. Katrina Pynchon." Other than that, this was a ridiculous episode designed for one purpose: what I stated above. It was not to give us what it is supposed to: a crime story.