Certain Prey (2011 TV Movie) User Reviews

Certain Prey (2011)

[SamWanjere · 6/10 · 24 December 2011]

Mark Harmon's portrayal of Lucas Davenport is similar to Jethro in Navy NCIS. Both are brooding, detached and popular with women, but also relentless and one-track minded when it comes to focus on work.

I think Davenport is portrayed well, even though overshadowed somewhat by Attorney Carmel Loan and Clara Rinker's strong female characters.

One thing I didn't like much is the numerous sub-plots within. They seem too many for a movie of this length. Among them is the background to the two women's childhoods, and possible explanation of why they are who they are; and the attorney whose death sparks the movie's investigative finale;

Overall it's a good movie and a worth watch.

Decent enough

[fahlstrom · 6/10 · 30 June 2013]

I find myself agreeing with some of the other reviews in that this is a decent enough adaptation of the tenth of John Sandford (John Camp's) novels and as such it attempts to try and interlace a lot of storyline into the video that fans of the books will understand. It is about as good a job of the gritty storyline that you'll be able to find on commercial TV. Sandford writes some excellent, gripping and gruesome stories more suited for cable or the big screen ...which is really where I would enjoy seeing more of his fine work. Harmon did fair but like others I found him wanting. Davenport is a big, tough and mean character that the bad guys are truly afraid of for good reason. An ex hockey player well over 6' with a brooding character that women love. Harmon isn't the right choice although I liked his effort. A much better choice would have been Russell Crowe, Ray Liotta or Nick Nolte. The two lead women did a great job pulling off the roles of Carmen and Clara but for the buxom Marcy a far better choice would have been the beautiful and moody Jennifer Connelly. Granted, my cast would have driven the costs of this up a lot ...probably far more than any made for TV effort. Hey guys, don't knock it. Any Sandford book that makes it to the screen is worth watching. Maybe not as good as they could have been but...

Great novel, poorly cast

[bryan-930-337366 · 5/10 · 1 September 2019]

The novel and entire series are amazing. This was serviceable, mostly because Harmon, in particular, just doesn't have the edge Lucas Davenport calls for. And I wasn't particularly impressed with the woman cast as Clara either. As a result, this did not live up to the book despite a valiant effort by Chris Geralmo who is talented. Average.

It sucked and then some

[thommytiger · 1/10 · 9 November 2011]

For one, Mark Harmon is too old, too thinning and gray, too scrawny, and too short to credibly pull off Detective Lucas Davenport. He came across as a better-dressed version of Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Second, he surrounded himself with some of the lamest acting talent available today. Athena Karkanis was embarrassingly bad as Marcy, even when you looked past the fact that she's too short, too soft-spoken, and not physical enough (inadequately endowed) to fill the role (think WWF's Chyna toned down a notch--that's Marcy). Did Harmon even read the book? Or the series? An unbelievable hack job. I think the Porsche out-acted the cast. Poor Sandford/Camp is now 0-for-2 on screen adaptations of his books. Note to Harmon: If you plan on doing another Davenport book, please hire Sandford as a consultant/screenwriter and LISTEN to him.

Terrible story

[Cameron-Daniel · 6 November 2011]

Mark Harmon was great, and you could see shades of "Gibbs", so I was hoping that this would be a little like NCIS but with a different twist, but I was greatly disappointed. The storyline is a little disjointed as they start talking about a young lady who was raped and instead of just hurting the rapist she decides to kill him. She is then recruited by a crime organization to become a professional hit-man, then you are introduced to an attorney and it appears that this is the same person, it's not until later that you find out the lawyer is a different person and you have no idea how she becomes connected with the assassin. You don't know what's going on and who is who because the story jumps too much. At the end the assassin call Harmon's character and they talk and you don't know if Harmon's character is a bad guy or a good guy. Could have been a really great movie, but it missed the mark.

Better than expected

[somanathsandie · 7/10 · 17 July 2022]

After what was a disappointing start, Certain Prey settled into a comfortable watch for the evening. The initial acting was stiff and apart from Mark Harmon and Lola Glaudini, the cast were generally underwhelming. The script improved as the movie progressed and thankfully the plot in which 2 women commit a series of murders was better than expected. The only thing I truly disliked was the narrative by Harmon during the movie which explained too much from the book. It was uneccessarily distracting and quite annoying. All in all I'm glad I tuned in to watch Harmon in something other than NCIS.

Please avoid this movie unless you want to laugh at bad writing

[nex21 · 1/10 · 9 November 2011]

Agree with the other reviewers, this was an embarrassing "movie". Bad lines, actors mailing in performances and it felt like a high school play where everyone was just muddling along with no flow and no tension. If I could give it 0 stars I would, but the 1 star is for the laughs I got when listening to the bad lines.

Like a train wreck, I had to watch through the end to see the chain of comical sequences come to an end.

This was a blatant audience grab for the fans of Mark Harmon and NCIS. He looked like he tried to be Gibbs again, but seriously it is tough to overcome a bad script.

Recently read the book. Fairly decent movie representation.

[Jonathanraven1980 · 7/10 · 27 May 2021]

I actually enjoyed this movie a fair bit, as a reasonable representation of the book story. I'm about to read the sequel book to Certain Prey book 10, Mortal Prey book 13, so I thought it'd be neat to watch this movie, which I accidentally discovered on google while searching for a physical copy of Certain Prey, which as it happens, is one of my favourite Davenport Novels so far (and Winter Prey).

Harmon didn't 100% fit the image of Davenport, that said. But he did a fair job at the attempt. I am pretty sure Weather Karkinnen was supposed to be the redhead at the beginning? But I dunno? If so, bad representation. But meh.

I loved the actress that played Marcy. She probably didn't have the breasts we get described in the books, but that didn't matter. Loved her personality. Beautiful woman, with oddly perfect white teeth. Loved the scene with her and Carmel Loan in each others face in the office.

I really loved the portrayal of Clara Rinker as well. I thought she fit very well in the role. Loved her dance with Lucas (though I'm pretty sure Lucas danced better in the book? Not that I had a visual, but I thought I recalled him dancing decent).

I think this is about the best you'll get for a TV Movie to be honest. I didn't even plan to watch it. I was just going to skip around and see if it resembled the book and be done (because book movies are usually utter crap). But nope, I oddly enjoyed this. You may not.

From what I remember it seems to follow the book pretty decent. There is a lot of dialogue taken directly from the book. I'd give this a higher rating, but it's still just a TV movie and could have been better in a lot of ways. The car shootout ending could have been better for instance, but was kinda TV cheesy. But that IS how it happened in the book as I recall. So no complaints on accuracy.

Embarrassingly bad

[BobFliegel · 1/10 · 19 November 2011]

One of the most excruciatingly bad pilots in years. As a Sandford fan and a Minneapolis native, I cringed at the treatment the book received in this debacle of abysmal writing, acting, and casting. The lines were wooden and the production smacked of tight soap opera camera work and amateurish audio. This is a rip-off of Jethro Gibbs fans who tuned in in hopes of seeing an equally compelling character in Harmon's Lucas Davenport. What a profound disappointment. I couldn't watch more than 20 minutes of this initial episode and I have no intention of giving the series a second chance. Unless the writers and supporting cast are replaced, this bomb will die well before season two.

Just awful.

[clr231 · 1/10 · 28 November 2011]

I have been a "Prey" fan for years and I always wished they would do a good film adaptation of one of the books. I thought the first one was pretty bad but Mark Harmon made Eriq Lasalle look like Robert DeNiro. I was never a fan of Harmon and I was pretty disappointed when I found out he was playing Davenport. But I gave it a chance and it was actually worse than I thought it could be. Everything was bad. The directing, casting, acting, and who the hell thought voice overs would be a good idea? So disappointed. I have a hard time believing John Sandford signed off on this pile of crap. For the love of God please do not do another one of these. An embarrassment to the books!

A Whole Lot of Love

[darknemesistattoo · 10/10 · 10 November 2011]

It seems many people hated this movie, but it is fairly obvious from the reviews that none of you have read the books. I thought Mark Harmon did an excellent job of portraying Lucas Davenport, and you can tell by his performance that he is a fan of the books. He really captured the world-weariness of Davenport without going over the top with the character's general bad-assery, and I would love to see him return in further "Prey" movies! As for the people who didn't approve of the fact that all of the characters seemed to be sleeping with one another, this movie is an adaptation of the tenth book in the series. There were nine other books spanning several years of plot that led up to the movie's various romantic entanglements. The producers and writers just did a really efficient job of summing up too much information into a believable plot.

Horrid

[donlessnau-591-637730 · 1/10 · 3 December 2011]

To quote the late, great Bill Hicks, "Piece of S..."

How could Sandford sign off on this stinkburger?

Sandford and Lucas Davenport is the best series I've ever read but this movie was a hot, steaming plate of steaming BS.

The screenplay seemed more intent on putting in PC lines about gays and feminism than following the book. Where did the gay cop come from? He certainly wasn't in the book.

Everyone connected with this stinkburger should be banned from making movies for the rest of their lives. Painful to watch.

It was a great book as all the Prey series are but the treatment was juvenile and childishly PC.

Poor in every aspect

[chipe · 8 November 2011]

The movie is a tremendous embarrassment and failure from virtually every standpoint. I can see why they didn't send it to reviewers prior to "opening night." Besides a few shows and cable news, I don't watch much TV, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It's as good a sign as any that America is in serious decline. From the very beginning, the language of seemingly all the characters offended me. Also childish, as well as offensive, was the fact that every character seemed to be sleeping with everyone else. I was appalled by the violence. They witlessly and childishly put the worst traits of traditional male characters into the female characters here. Everyone was described as the "best" -- best lawyer in town, etc. The solving of the case seemed riddled with plot holes and miraculous assumptions and luck. The motivation for the murder of the wife seemed unbelievable -- a high-powered successful lady lawyer kills the wife of a man she has a one-time quickie with in the bathroom of a party 2 years ago because the husband doesn't return her affection!!! I can't recall any good reason for Mark Harmon's character zeroing in on the night club owned by the serial killer. I didn't like someone in the deputy police chief's position breaking into the woman's apartment under the circumstances (and great "luck" finding a bullet and spotting the key phone call entry). His violent "interrogation" scene was a joke. I didn't like many of the supporting cast. Finally, I couldn't believe that Harmon's rainbow staff defied him so -- they couldn't take "no" when he wouldn't disclose what he was doing at the moment, and they went so incredibly far as to blackmail him into divulging the info by threatening to reveal a past sexual dalliance as sexual harassment! They should have been fired. Harmon's character here was too retro and silly -- fast cars and women, fancy dresser, rich computer guy retiring to be top cop. Remarkable that the big-time hit-woman could miss Gibbs at the end.

Great Mark Harmon Performance, Awful Movie

[tombeardsley43 · 1/10 · 24 November 2011]

There was nothing wrong with Mark Harmon's performance. It was just the movie. It really, really sucked. The only thing good about the movie was Mark Harmon. He did a terrific job portraying the character. I never read the books, but after seeing this bad ass through the talent of Mark Harmon, I like him:) But the movie was overly showered with cliché performances. If they ever make a sequel, it better be a big improvement. However, I'm always looking forward to seeing his next movie. Mark Harmon is the only participant of this movie that deserves to rise. All the others really should burn. I can't to see Mark Harmon play another bad ass character.

Mark Harmon is NOT lucas davenport!

[jtaglione555 · 2/10 · 19 May 2012]

To say the plot of this movie was fresh in my mind is a serious understatement. I had just finished rereading the book at 2:30am, thinking "this would make such a good movie!" and I turned the TV on and no joke, the movie was on USA at that exact moment. It was kind of freaky.

Talk about being thrilled!

But I was very very disappointed. First of all, Mark Harmon???? He is no Lucas Davenport. I dream of Lucas....Mark is NOT him.... no. Plus Lucas isn't fully grey yet.

I am still baffled at the casting for Marcy Sherrill. Angie Harmon would have been a much better casting. And Black as well (not to mention that in the books Black is still half in the closet gay)

And why on earth did they change Carmel's car from a bright red Jag.

I would really love for these books to be made into real, credible, GOOD movies with a great cast that can actually act. I don't understand why John Sandford is approving these or whatever. The books are so great. It pains me to see them made into "barely acceptable made-for-TV (and-not-even-lifetime-quality" movies.

Harmon Should Stick With NCIS

[zardoz-13 · 5/10 · 12 December 2012]

Whatever Mark Harmon saw in "Certain Prey" wasn't in it when I saw it. This pedestrian police procedural about Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Lucas Davenport solving a complicated crime delivers barely enough to make it tolerable. Nothing about Oscar nominated writer & director Chris Gerolmo's run-of-the-mill saga stands out. Mark Harmon is charismatic enough, but nobody else seems remotely interesting. Mind you, Chief Davenport resembles Harmon's Special Agent Jethro Gibbs in large part. The Chief has a cabin in the woods where he goes to ponder things. Davenport's adversaries are a pair of killer bimbos who display no qualms about knocking people off in cold blood. These lethal ladies are bad news. Just ask the stuck-up narcotics peddler who doesn't believe that a dame can kill. One of the gals draws the line at gunning down little girls while the other has worries about a munchkin who saw them leave a crime scene. This is one of many complications that gum up the works for the unlucky pair. Cast as a sexy attorney named Carmel Loan, Lola Glaudini looks like a slim, attractive Susan Sarandon. Carmel is an obnoxious attorney who chases ambulances and loves to get married men in hot water. She hooks up with another lady, Clara Rinker (Tatiana Maslany of "Defendor"), to kill a villainous dope dealer. Initially, Clara is interesting because she became a killer when she killed a rapist with a baseball bat to the brain. Clara's willingness to kill makes her a splendid candidate for hit-man school. Since the St. Louis mob has trained her, Clara has iced more than 25 victims. This cute dish wields a silenced .22 caliber automatic pistol and lives out of town. She loves to pour lead into her victims, long after they have been shot. This poor trait rubs off on her friend Carmel who doesn't know when to start shooting and when to stop. Clara gets into trouble when she kills a cop who witnessed her execution style killing. The FBI is now on her trail, but they don't have much evidence to incriminate Clara.

Although our hero absorbs a couple of shots, the Chief survives all the lead in the air with comparative ease. An innocent bystander captures a video of Davenport shooting an assailant charging him with a sports car and a pistol. The best surprise occurs during the last few minutes when we realize that one of those dolls escapes without either dying or doing time. In other words, Gerolmo doesn't tie up everything in a neat bundle. Instead, he leaves strands dangling. If anything sets this made-for-television crime thriller is Davenport's ethically challenged method of operation. He his loves to provoke his suspects and this strategy works. He has little use for search warrants and keeps hose and lock-pick tools handy. Unfortunately, the Chief's adversaries fall for this trick when they aren't tripping themselves up. The gag with the soap is one of the best. Sadly, unlike "NCIS," Harmon is surrounded by actors and actresses that pale by comparison with his gifted CBS-TV colleagues. The repartee between Chief Davenport and his colleagues is pretty bland for the man who wrote "Mississippi Burning," and nobody stands out as prominently as Davenport. A running gag is Chief Davenport's sexual exploits, particularly his 40 nights with a female subordinate. The things to watch for are a thick police manuscript and a lady who has trouble counting the number of .22 caliber cartridges in a container. Harmon delivers the only memorable line of dialogue: "Everybody I talk to says he's dumber than a barrel of hair." This shallow, straightforward thriller is ultimately forgettable. Only die-hard Mark Harmon should endure this polished pabulum.

Really really bad

[saturniine-92388 · 1/10 · 15 January 2017]

First I would like to say, that I kind of like Mark Harmon, I sometimes watch NCIS, which is sort of a no brainer, but he is doing OK. Second, I would like to state that I totally love John Sandfords novels around Lucas Davenport, who is 6,5, dark haired, handsome, a ladiesman. Enter Mark Harmon as Lucas Davenport in this movie - he is what he is, tired, grey, thin, hooded eyed, heaven help us, this no Lucas Davenport at all. I read the book and I liked it. It was a compelling story, interesting and kind of sad concrning Clara Rinker, the hitwoman. But the script they drained out of this great book was dull and boring, and full of suddenly seemed forced situation that made sense in the book but were taken out of content in the movie. And there was this irritation narration, what was this all about, maybe this should create a Marlowe-feeling or something, it was cheap anyway. And this awful score which loud and exorbitant symphonic, what the heck...avoid at any cost. If would have seen first, I would never ever have read any of the books. I highly recommend ALL the books of John Sandford btw.

When reality meets fiction.

[swf64 · 8/10 · 24 March 2012]

I came across this pretty much by accident. I don't get the channel that made this TV movie, and as a huge fan of Davenport/Sandford, I eventually went to great lengths to get a copy. By then I had seen the reviews and pictures here and they had lowered my expectations. In fact, I even waited a couple of weeks to view it. I think many of the complaints of this film come from the unmistakable fact that a TV movie will never be better than a Sandford novel, and even more so for an audience that enjoys reading.

I also think this is one of the real strengths of this film. Mark Harmon and company didn't try to give us our vision of Davenport, he gave us his. All of the characters in the film represent an image that is similar to the book series, but also unique, and the villains are exceptionally well played. In the end, it works well and stands on its own merits. I really enjoyed this TV version of Sandford and hope there are more. This is good TV.

Lola

[Cedar13 · 4/10 · 19 September 2012]

Saw this mediocre movie for the first time last weekend. Was home sick in bed and desperate for any entertainment. Milding interesting, more as I live in the Minneapolis area (live only a few miles from the airport sign they show). Two days later I saw Lola Glaudini in almost the same role in the Law and Order episode "Loneyville" from 2007. In both she plays a sexy lesbian attorney who has a female partner in crime. I like her character in both but needed more sexuality than could be shown on TV. Really didn't like the ending in the movie. Could not believe that someone driving a convertible could fire a gun over the top of the front window and almost hit someone 100 yards away.

They didn't mesh with my expectations of the characters

[fourtwentytax · 19 November 2011]

It is the adaptation of a book and it played out like a book, with narrations and other adaptation problems. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't that good. I thought Mark Harmon did a very good job of portraying Lucas Davenport. He really captured the world-weariness of Davenport as I had pictured him in the book, without going over the top with the character nor playing another hard charging "Gibbs" role. Davenport was an older cop who had been doing this a long time so I thought this would be a good role for Harmon. I have always liked Mark Harmon and he is just a bit older than I am.

As for the other characters they seemed to be poorly cast and poorly acted. I have never liked Lola Glaudini who played Carmel (even though her body looked great). I didn't like her when she was on Criminal Minds. The guy who played Hale is nowhere near what I expected especially with the ranting about how good looking he was but was dumber than a box of lint or whatever they said. Both Athena Karkanis ...Marcy and Tatiana Maslany ...Clara Rinker were, I don't know..... poorly cast, poorly developed and poorly acted. And I don't think these were bad actors based on other roles I have seem them play. Maybe it was poor directing. But they didn't mesh with my expectations of the characters.

Over all I was disappointed, expected more and will watch another NCIS marathon if I want to watch Mark Harmon act.......

Low budget production which is barely professional.

[chris-h-3 · 2/10 · 30 November 2021]

-- I read the book and was curios when I saw this was on. Well its a very low budget production and unfortunatley is barely a proffesional film let alone anything like an adaption of the book or any of the characters of the series.

The sets seem small and cramped, the cinematography is awkward, some of the actiong is really very poor and none of the characters end up at all belivable. Overall it all feels like a student project rather than a profesional enterprise. I know TV has come on a lot in the past ten years but even ten years ago it was rarely this poor.

Unwatchable

[classicmovielover-14637 · 3/10 · 6 December 2023]

Painful. One of the worst screenplays ever written. The acting is not much better. The entire film is a caricature, an excruciating attempt at modern film noir that fails from the opening frames.

From the cheesy, Sam Spade-esque voice-overs, to the excessively cliché dialog, to the ridiculous costumes (the deputy police chief wears panty hose over his head while breaking and entering, as does the assassin.)

Once you understand you're watching a terrible movie, you can almost laugh at how awful everything is. Honestly, this should have been a comedy.

Unless you enjoy pain, this is an easy pass.

Terrific, great,

[daphpavlicek · 9/10 · 18 August 2012]

Certain Prey, first TV adaptation of a novel by John Sandford. Tenth book in the Prey series.

This is the first show that has me picking up a book, a book in series, an excellent series at that. A few people expect that a movie or TV adaptation of a book should be to the word, I don't see this even possible unless you make it into a series with-in itself. I loved this story the characters and the lead character Lucas Davenport in my opinion was wonderfully portrayed, by Mark Harmon.I have become a Prey series fan because of this movie and am looking forward to the next installment. Davenport is suspiciously close to Gibbs in a lot of ways, Mark Harmon, a Sandford fan no doubt, they are connected, IMO. I loved it. A terrific movie full of Suspense and thoroughly engaging.

Liked Certain Prey

[seliott-indy · 21 November 2011]

I liked this movie and I really liked Lola Glaudini. It was not the best movie I have ever seen, but it was good entertainment. If you like Mark Harmon and NCIS, you should like this movie except his character plays a ladies man in this but it is implicated more than outright shown much. I really liked Lola Glaudini's character and how she fit into it. I thought she had the right kind of sexy and smart to pull off this character. It seems kind surreal and off the wall the extremes the character Carmel will go to and whether it is real life depicting, but then again, I see people doing off the wall things on the news on a weekly basis.

A fair representation

[lorenbruner · 8/10 · 14 May 2013]

Pretty good for a made-for-TV type movie. The story was good and so was the acting. I have always been a Mark Harmon fan but although he did a pretty good job he would not have been my first (or any) choice for Lucas Davenport. I'd have gone with Thomas Gibson who plays Aaron Hotchner on Criminal Minds. He carries more of the dark and brooding qualities that I associate with the character. Nevertheless Mark Harmon is a good actor and easy on the eyes, too, so I enjoyed the movie and would love to see more Prey novels on either the large or small screen. Hollywood has as done so well with the Alex Cross franchise, and IMHO Lucas Davenport is equally, if not more, interesting and well-drawn by his author.