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Instead, EvenHand tells a leisurely paced story about regular, everyday beat cops and the lives they affect.

Which isn’t to say nothing happens, in fact the film’s narrative, which follows a year in the life of a pair of San Lovisa, Texas officers, is an episodic journey through both the bizarre and the mundane experiences of its protagonists.

Intent on treating people with kindness and dignity, officer Rob Francis (Bill Dawes) has just transferred to a new precinct after a messy divorce. The well-meaning Francis is partnered with Officer Ted Morning (Bill Sage), San Lovisa’s resident loose cannon, a quick-tempered iconoclast who disregards standard procedures for his own set of rules and sense of justice.

Despite the differing personalities of the partners, any worries of EvenHand turning into a buddy cop movie or a good cop/bad cop film quickly disintergrate.

The pair settle into a fairly regular routine, patrolling the lower class areas of San Lovisa and badgering teenage drug dealer Toby (Io Tiller Wright), refereeing the comical domestic spats of Irene Pena and Hector Garcia and aiding a suburban man whose neighbor continues to harass him.

As the movie progresses, both officers come to understand or at least appreciate the other's way of doing the job and Francis starts to see that beneath Morning’s hostility and occasional mean-spiritedness lies an inherently decent man who is simply ill-equipped to deal with people.

As the philosophies of the two newly-partnered officers clash, so do the wildly divergent and quickly shifting tones of EvenHand.

Changing in the blink of an eye from smirkingly amusing to emotionally resonant, director Joseph Pierson captures the jarring shifts that are part of a police officer’s daily existence. Just as these cops never know when a conversation about commemorative Dale Earnhardt cars will give way to a life or death situation, the audience never knows when the film will change from comical to tragic.

EvenHand is one of the only cop films to ever give a true representation of what it is like to be an officer, and the movie’s greatest strength is its attention to detail, with Texas-native Mikes Jones' script based partly on his real-life experiences with the San Antonio police department.

But all of Jones’ keenly observed truths would mean nothing without the conviction the two lead actors bring to their roles.

Both spent weeks doing ridealongs with San Antonio cops, and that commitment to accuracy is evident throughout their performances as Dawes embodies naïve idealism in the more low-key of the parts, allowing Sage to chew the scenery in an intense performance that is both fierce and vulnerable.

Despite allowing a glimpse inside the extremely human men and woman who protect and serve, EvenHand probably won’t change the fact that most people have an inherent aversion to authority and simply don’t like cops.

However, anyone who is lucky enough to see EvenHand will certainly understand them a little bit better.

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originally posted: 03/27/03 08:31:30
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