In my opinion, as far as I can see DC walks around with a whipped puppy-dog look on his face and a down turned mouth when he’s supposed to be emoting sadness, empathy, sympathy and so on – and the only reason you know it’s supposed to be either sadness, empathy, sympathy and so on is because of what the scene is conveying, and not the actor.
...And when the scene is ambiguous, that you’re not sure of what the character should be emoting, I’ve only been able to read condescension on his face, and often a patronising ‘You’re an idiot, I’m not, so listen to me.’
I can also understand why some think that DC has played the same character in all of his films. I’d say that he was a pretty good actor in his younger days, particularly in ‘Kings of New York’, and John Kelly in NYPD Blue on TV, because the characters he played there were nothing like the Horatio Caine character. However when I look at Gold Coast, Deadlocked, and so on, I think I now have a pretty good handle on when DC has adlibbed a phrase in CSI Miami because I have heard the exact same phraseology in Gold Coast and so on.
Um, and as for the twitching when Horatio had been shot – I’m afraid that, in my opinion, Rory Cochrane’s acting ability when Speedle was ‘dying’ blew DC’s acting ability when Horatio was ‘supposedly’ dying, out of the water. It was a far more believable death scene, not only because of Rory’s acting ability, but because there were no fancy shots, no corny twitching, you just got the core of the scene – the fear of dying, the man choking to death on his own blood, the bleeding out and the helplessness of a close friend not being able to do anything other than watch.
For me Speedle’s death scene relied only on the ability of the actor to pull it off and in all honesty Rory did a fantastic job in doing just that. However, I felt that Horatio’s death scene relied mostly on how cool a shot would look, and/or how cool it would be to see Horatio twitching, and so on, rather than them showing the true impact of the scene – and in my opinion, the supposed ‘coolness’ of the scene translated to ‘corny’ for me.
Don’t get me wrong though, I honestly believed in the Horatio character in the first three Seasons and I do think, more often than not, that DC played a huge part in conveying that believability, however, since there has been this overload of nothing but high-unbelievably shitey-Drama for the Horatio character, both the character and the actor has suffered really badly for it.
...Just my opinion...
As for the Horatio Caine character – If the PTBs had returned at the beginning of this Season showing a further deterioration of the Horatio character, to the point where it would have been a bit more understandable as to why he was suddenly beating on a Paedophile and then executing a gang member, I wouldn’t be half as disappointed and annoyed at the PTBs as I am right now.
As a side note: If we’re being honest here, there really is no maybe, might have, might not have or presumably, about him beating up the Paedophile because Horatio’s words of “You’re resisting arrest” clearly told the viewer exactly what Horatio was about to do.
But anyway, no, they didn’t show a further deterioration of the character when they came back this Season, instead they showed the audience how Horatio was trying to initiate a connection with his team again, how he showed concern for them, and most importantly, how he still believed in the system as strongly as he did before because he was willing to, and did, march his son back to prison to continue to pay for the crimes he had committed... and so on and so on. We had all of that and more until all of a sudden we are left with a completely ambiguous scene of Horatio advancing on a Paedophile ready to beat the crap out of him.
...But not satisfied with that they then have Horatio executing a member of the Mala Noche gang, claiming that he was doing it under the pretext if it being Miami Justice.
Yes, the Horatio character has been through a lot, but if you’re going to apply reality to a fictional situation, then in reality, in all probability, someone like Horatio would have committed suicide by now, because, in my opinion, up until this season Horatio had always been shown to be compassionate, passionate, emphathetic, sympathetic and any other positive ‘tic’ you want to associate with the character.
But most of all, in my opinion, Horatio was also shown to have a high regard for life, whether it was for a victim’s life or a criminal’s. He would only shoot if being shot at, or that he had read the situation that if he didn’t shoot to kill then he would be dead himself – but that’s not how the execution of the gang member went down and that’s also not how his beating of the Paedophile went down either.
Anyway, the way I viewed things was that Horatio had got his personal revenge the moment he killed Riaz. All of the foreshadowing leading up to that moment told the viewer that. Besides, it was the only reason he and Delko were in Brazil in the first place. But then, even if his killing Riaz hadn’t quashed the need for vengeance in him, then why did Horatio show a huge amount of remorse when he was forced to kill the guy at the end of the Rio episode? Was it for show, because Ray jnr was there, or was it because he actually felt remorse? Until recently I never questioned that scene, but now I am being forced to question nigh-on all of the scenes where Horatio has shown compassion and empathy and so on, because his actions of late are telling me that all of what I thought the character was never existed in the first place.
...And not only that, the horrible thing about all of this is that this crap that is now Horatio Caine, it’s also affecting the other characters around him.
For instance, in the finale, they showed Calleigh being utterly complicit to Horatio’s need to hunt down Ron Saris, because she gave Horatio a list of names (plural – names not name) and pointed out the only name she knew Horatio would be interested in. And then she was shown to be perfectly happy with letting Horatio go do his hunting, even though there was no proof whatsoever that Ron saris was guilty of anything and that any one of the other names on that list could instead be guilty.
That’s not the Calleigh I know and if Ryan is in on the set-up, then he too will be shown to be complicit to Horatio’s vigilante hunting. In fact anyone who is in on the set-up will shown to be complicit.
This is why CSI Miami no longer holds any interest for me now, because not only is the Lead Character committing crimes all over the pace and getting away with them, but the secondary characters are also being tainted by his actions, because they appear to believe that his actions are not only lawful but perfectly acceptable as well.
Not good!
