Law & Order (TV Series) Veteran's Day (2004) User Reviews

The Country's Divide

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 29 November 2015]

I've had more than one discussion with people in law enforcement about the precise difference between Murder 2 and Manslaughter 1. Apparently it's in the time that you form intent to kill. On that people including the people who sit on juries disagree.

It's on that which this Law And Order story turns on. A young man who liked to get in people's faces for whatever cause he believed in is found strangled to death in a unique manner which Jerry Orbach describes as the 'sleeper hold'. The NYPD banned it years ago, but those with military training might know it. That's where Orbach and Jesse Martin go hunting for their perpetrator.

In the end they arrest mail carrier Paul Calderon who was a veteran himself and whose son died in Afghanistan. The victim with whom he had slight and unfriendly history with got in Calderon's face once too often calling his son a murderer.

Calderon has a good lawyer in Joe Morton when he goes to court and Sam Waterston is hard pressed to make a case for sympathy for the victim. The debate over the war in Afghanistan is played out as well as those legal definitions I mentioned before.

I won't reveal the result, but Fred C. Thompson probably was right on the money when characterized the nature of the jury at the very end.

Division by war

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 6 July 2022]

Have loved the original 'Law and Order' for a long time, particularly the earlier seasons, and consider it my personal favourite of the 'Law and Order' franchise. Did like the idea for Season 14's "Veteran's Day", though on paper it may seem too ordinary and has the dangers of heavy-handedness and one-sided-ness. 'Law and Order' do have a good track record at making something great and more complex than expected out of stories that don't sound out of the ordinary on paper

"Veteran's Day" is a very good episode, if falling a little short of being great despite having a lot of great things individually. Like a lot of episodes in 'Law and Order's' late seasons and actually 'Law and Order' in general, it is a case of one half being superior to the other. But not because one half is bad, just that there is one half that executes the storytelling especially even better. Though perhaps it could have done a little bit more with the subject covered, which is a challenging role and a brave one to tackle.

Beginning with the good, it is a slickly made episode, the editing especially having come on quite a bit from when the show first started (never was it a problem but it got more fluid with each episode up to this stage). The music is sparingly used and never seemed melodramatic, the theme tune easy to remember as usual. The direction is sympathetic enough without being too low key on the whole.

The script is generally taut, with little fat, and intelligent. The story does intrigue and is tense and moving, the policing scenes are solidly done and the legalities are accessible and intriguing. It doesn't come over as preachy and it isn't too much of one side. Most of the acting is very, very good, Sam Waterston dominating. Do love Briscoe and Green's chemistry.

On the other hand, Elisabeth Rohm looks bored and drained of life and never connects with the character or with Waterston. Once things become more complex and not what they seemed initially, the episode becomes a little over-complicated and could have done with a slowing down.

Did find the ending on the hasty side from trying to include too much in a short period of time.

Concluding, very good. 8/10.

Blood floods the brain, the capillaries start exploding like popcorn.

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 6 December 2017]

Two friends were taking a stroll in a chilly and snowy night. They noticed a guy on the sidewalk and they thought he felt asleep: he was actually strangled to death. The guy was a college student very active as an anti-war protester; forensics stated the killer must have skills that come from military training by the way the strangulation occurred. Detectives realized he was a chain-smoker and they questioned at first the owner of the neighborhood tobacco store. The same day the victim, who had a bad temper, had an argument with a mailman and with a policeman. Someone stashed his tyres and scratched his car door and later on he confronted a war veteran (Paul Calderon) at a local pub, located nearby the crime scene. It wasn't the first time the two had a fight: months earlier they argued at community board over the decision to name a road after the veteran's son, a soldier killed in action. At trial all becomes a matter of poor or rich backgrounds.

This episode show us how the public opinion is torn between who is pro and who is against war. Anyway in every war only poor guys face the battlefield.