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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Will Wade

FLASHPOINT follows the highly trained police officers who work on the Special Response Unit, an elite squad that's called in to handle hostage situations, armed standoffs, and other high-risk missions. These jobs can often escalate into deadly shootouts, and when they require marksmen to take out a criminal, it's Sgt. Gregory Parker's (Enrico Colantoni) duty to give the order, while Ed Lane (Hugh Dillon) and his partner Jules Callahan (Amy Jo Johnson) are the snipers who have to take the shot.

Is It Any Good?

3

Plenty of cop shows glamorize the action and pay little attention to the repercussions; this one deserves credit for detailing how each mission can affect the officers and their families. It's hard to shoot someone -- to carefully aim a rifle at another person, line them up in the sights, and, when the order finally comes, deliberately pull the trigger. It's clear that the SRU team members take their job seriously, but there's often heavy emotional aftermath. Lane even throws up immediately after one particularly harrowing assignment -- though, with typical cop bravado, he refuses to admit he was shaken.

That said, the fact that Flashpoint almost goes out of its way to portray a shooting as a negative experience can bog the show down a bit. After one clearly warranted killing, the police force sends in a team of lawyers and investigators to analyze every step of the process, making the sniper seem almost like a criminal rather than a cop following orders. It makes a traumatic experience seem even worse and certainly doesn't make police work seem appealing -- a sharp contrast to the strong sense of camaraderie within the SRU before each mission.

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