| View Larger Image | Intelligence | DVDStarring: Ian Tracey, Klea Scott
Directed By: Stephen Surjik
| List Price: | $59.99 | | Price: | $52.49 | | You Save: | $7.50 (13%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | DVD | | Rating: |  | | Run Time: | 676 minutes | | Format: | Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen | | Studio: | ACORN MEDIA | | Number of Discs: | 4 | | Aspect Ratio: | 1.66:1 | | Release Date: | April 29, 2008 | | Sales Rank: | 21,390st |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Description
Information is the most addictive drug of all. "One of the smartest cop dramas in years" -- The Vancouver Sun "Smart. . .sexy. . .edgy" -- The Toronto Star This critically acclaimed drama from the creator of Da Vinci’s Inquest takes you deep inside the murky world of organized crime and the cops who keep tabs on it. As a dedicated father, respected businessman, and big-time drug smuggler, Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey) feels the heat from outlaw bikers muscling in on his territory. Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), the ruthlessly ambitious head of Vancouver’s organized crime unit, fears her rivals in the intelligence community more than she fears criminals. Together, Jimmy and Mary form an uneasy alliance that threatens to undo them both. From Vancouver’s mean streets to its high-rise offices, Intelligence shows the shifty nature of undercover information-gathering, where your deadliest enemy can become your closest confidant and treachery is taken for granted. DVD FEATURES INCLUDE behind-the-scenes clips, biography of series creator Chris Haddock, character descriptions, cast filmographies, and more. Contains strong coarse language. |
Amazon.com
You may need a scorecard to keep track of all the characters appearing in Intelligence. But identifying their agendas is no problem, as they all seem to have the one that's spelled out in the series' title: namely, the gathering of the kind of inside information commonly known as intelligence. Throughout the 14 episodes (including a two-part pilot) comprising the first season (2006) of this Canadian police drama, there are cops who infiltrate the ranks of the bad guys, and vice versa. There are bad policemen and good criminals. There are rats, moles, and worms galore--so many, in fact, that even some of the rats have rats--and so much treachery, suspicion, and mistrust that one wonders how anyone has time for anything else. At the center of all this activity are two principals: Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey), a Vancouver businessman who also happens to operate a thriving drug-running enterprise, and Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), a cop who currently heads the city's Organized Crime Unit but wants to be promoted to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Reardon is no Tony Soprano; he's a low-key kind of guy who responds to his subordinates' frequent screw-ups not with violence but with a shrug, who gives his cokehead ex-wife (Camille Sullivan) and alcoholic brother (Bernie Coulson) endless opportunities to betray and disappoint him, and who forms an "uneasy alliance" with Spalding, supplying her with information in return for her backing off on the police surveillance of his marijuana-dealing activities. For her part, the humorless Spalding is almost universally unliked, but too preoccupied with nailing her cheating husband (she hires a private investigator to collect intelligence on the guy), rooting out the traitor in the OCU, and pursuing her new gig to care. While there are some intriguing ideas here, both professionally (especially in the early episodes, when a file containing the names of the police's confidential informants falls into the wrong hands, putting many lives in jeopardy) and personally (including Reardon's competition with his ex for custody of their daughter and Spalding's struggle to get ahead in a male-dominated world), Intelligence falls short of consistently compelling viewing. On most levels--acting, writing, action, excitement--the show has a kind of second-tier vibe that simply doesn't measure up to its more flashy American counterparts; these days, dealing pot seems mighty small-time, and when it comes to "mean streets," Vancouver doesn't exactly resonate like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Extras include some behind-the-scenes material, a bio of creator-writer Chris Haddock (who was also responsible for Da Vinci's Inquest), character descriptions, and cast filmographies. --Sam Graham |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 19 reviews)
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Intelligents by Francis J. Stromski (Clallam County WA)  5 Stars
November 25, 2009
Intelligence is the best weekly TV show I have ever watched. Truly I think Intelligence is better than Prison Break or Lost.
My wife said I was addicted to the show but once she started watching from the beginning of the first season she found out why I was addicted. She too became an Intelligence Addict along with my sister who is now watching season 1 & 2.
Once ya start watching Intelligence it is tough to get to bed on time, it's late nights at the big screen till the end of season 2.
I sure hope they make a season 3.
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We Need More Intelligence, eh? by J. Dito (Sebastopol, CA USA) 5 Stars
October 26, 2009
I just finished watching the last episode of Intelligence and I must say that I cannot believe there isn't more of it. I wonder if the CBC was 'told' to bury it because it's too realistic! Other than that, several more seasons of this brilliant crime drama would be fantastic. After all, Jimmy was still breathing at the end - and that tells me that maybe, just maybe, Chris Haddock, et al., are busy negotiating a green light to bring the series back to life. I hope so.
Intriguing, great dialogue, unforgettable characters...great acting and directing!
Waiting to celebrate. Also, does anyone know how to obtain the soundtrack from the series? Is there one?
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Intelligent television by MZ (Novinger, MO United States) 5 Stars
October 02, 2009
Intelligence is the best television crime drama I have seen yet. In fact, it might be the best dramatic series, period. First of all, the casting is excellent. Every actor is the perfect match for the character he or she plays on the show, all the way from the major roles down to the bit parts. Ian Tracey plays a man with integrity who just happens to find himself running the family marijuana business. Matt Brewer is the ultimate creep as an ambitious, double-crossing and back-stabbing intelligence officer. But there are admirable people in the Canadian intelligence service as well, with Klea Scott taking the strong lead there.
Intelligence manages to be intensely gripping without glorifying violence or the criminal lifestyle. Much of the time, Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey) seems to be looking for a way out of the competitive drug trade, in favor of a normal life for his daughter. This series is different from any crime drama you will see on American TV, and that is a good thing.
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A Wire in Vancouver by K. L. Cotugno (San Francisco, CA USA) 5 Stars
August 11, 2009
As with HBO's superb show The Wire, this Canadian show crosses lines where the bad guys are all bad and the good guys aren't all good. With above average setups and dialogue, intriguing music and superb casting, this series grabs you by the throat and does not let go. This is television as good as it gets. Highly recommended.
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Hooked! by Silverfish (Central Texas) 5 Stars
May 02, 2009
Intelligence has been compared to The Wire and other HBO series. It certainly meets their standards and often surpasses them in plot and character development. The series (so far -- through the first season and into the first couple of weeks of the second) doesn't throw the kinds of plot surprises at the viewer which indicate that the writers were having a hard time figuring out what to do next. Instead, you become a believer and a fully-engaged partner in the action. Character drives action. As other reviewers have suggested, it really gets under your skin.
Here's the thing: The writers of this and other notable Canadian TV series show respect for the viewer. They don't belabor each point; they don't hammer home each plot twist. They don't nudge-nudge and they don't overdo. Of course, the pleasure of watching this series demands a little more imagination and focus than many American series (frequent exception: The Wire) which seem to play to an attention span of about three minutes. Result: the viewer feels respected and drawn in, rather than patronized.
Klea Scott is endlessly compelling; Matt Frewer becomes a wonderfully detestable and (we hope) doomed sleazeball; Bernie Coulson's Mike has you on tenterhooks, waiting for his next screw-up. Ian Tracey, as the complicated and attractive drug lord, is competent and deft. Throughout each 45 minute episode, a crew of directors has you hooked on the interplay between Vancouver's drug underground and ambitious (not to mention vicious and corrupt) American and Canadian officials.
I envy you if you haven't yet seen this series -- you have a treat in store!
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