I’m watching “The Staircase Murders” on Lifetime and it occurs to me that much of the verisimilitude of this movie about the Michael Peterson case has been lost because of the Duke lacrosse case.
So many people know what the Durham County Judicial Building looks like from all of the TV standups made on its steps in the past 15 months that the stand-in courthouse in L.A. or somewhere is just a real laugher. And the courtroom that is supposed to be in Durham has 18-foot ceilings and carved oak, hardly the spartan chambers of the judicial building on Main Street. Treat Williams as Peterson is passable, and New Orleans-born Douglas M. Griffin as DA Jim Hardin does a commendable job, his Southern accent lacking the usual Hollywood overtreatment.
Speaking of which, the Freda Black character, played by Lisha Brock, has little of the courtroom gravitas of the real Freda Black. In fact, Brock plays her as something of a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Kyra Sedgewick’s character in “The Closer.” Harold Evans as the judge has an eery likeness to the actual Judge Orlando Hudson, another reminder of the Duke lacrosse-Nifong saga.
Also, all of Peterson’s comments about the incompetence of the Durham Police Department are much more meaningful than they would have absent the Duke lacrosse case history.
