Oh yeah? You know, you might want to mention that little tidbit, I don't know, towards the beginning of the film instead of waiting for the very end. Suddenly Jeff Fahey's character is an earring designer, how convenient. And as a sketch artist, he is naturally granted complete access to the crime scene, even though he has no reason for being there. Oh, he's there to do a floor plan. Right. After forensics has been through taking thousands of photographs, suddenly the sketch artist is granted access to do a floor plan. Have they ever asked him to do a floor plan before? His car-sized partner is sent to arrest him, even though it's clearly a conflict of interest, and instead of arresting him he allows him to merrily skip around town stealing cars and looking for the extremely obvious killer, something that the incompetent detectives are somehow completely incapable of doing because they're, you know, stupid, while Jeff Fahey's character is qualified to solve the crime because he employs all of his skills as a sketch artist. Yes, it's all as dumb as it sounds, and even the payoff leaves one wanting; what is Sean Young's motivation for cheating, she could just as easily have walked out on her husband, there was no reason for her to stay with him.

One of the first things askew with Sketch Artist is the complete mismatching of Fahey and Young. The casting agent must have been on drugs to think that the brittle Young and the jacked up Fahey could have chemistry. Their love scenes are uncomfortable and unbelievable. When they embrace passionately, Young is so passive and Fahey is so unhinged, the tendency would be to fear for Young's safety if, in fact, it would be possible to fear for a character who seems so soulless and vacant. The problem is, of course, that this interpretation does not follow the plot line since Young is the one who is clearly supposed to be in control.Fahey's and Young's characters are alike in one way, however: both of them feel contrived. Young seems like she's just coasting on her remarkable looks. Fahey is a bundle of acting tricks: flinging his cigarettes angrily out of windows, throwing things on the floor in fits of angst and yelling (unconvincingly) angry things. When he's not throwing cigarettes, papers, or words, he's posing partially unclothed. Not that Fahey is a bad looking guy, but the presence of so many scenes--Fahey shirtless, partially shirtless, walking around in his underwear, or dressing--is pandering, and so annoying.The plot was as unbelievable as the characters. There are multiple instances of the narrative not supporting the characters' actions, improbability (for example, another poster here pointed out that Fahey steals a car and never gets caught--even has a police car pass him without repercussion. He also breaks into multi-million dollar homes where there is, apparently, no security) and predictability. Drew Barrymore was wasted in a role that required her to stumble through an indifferent witness description and play dead (interesting that her armpits are notably unshaven. How quirky is that?).On a positive note, there are some pleasant surprises. Fahey's car doesn't ever start so he's always bumming rides. There's a delightful (yet unfulfilling) scene where Jack questions a woman (Stacy Haiduk?) in her home and she shares her last can of beer with him by pouring part of it into a china cup.Throughout this movie I kept thinking, "Someone is hoping to get a sequel out of this." I was right because three years later, the sequel to this squealer appeared--Sketch Artist 2: Hands That See.All in all, not a horrible film, for a TV movie, but not a good one. It has a few redeeming moments and is enjoyable for the horrible clothing if nothing else.

Sketch Artist held my attention throughout, with Jeff Fahey as a police department sketch artist who, to his surprise, draws a composite of his wife (Sean Young) in a murder investigation, based on a description provided by a witness (Drew Barrymore). Unnerved, Fahey changes the drawing and meanwhile attempts to find out what happened and if his wife was really involved or not.I liked this movie. The last 20 minutes or so seemed to stretch out a little too long, and I found myself eager for something to happen. It does, though it seemed a little subdued. I still liked the entire movie though, and the first half was particularly atmospheric. This was also pretty stylish for 1992. This is Fahey's movie, and he conveys the emotions and persona of a concerned, confused, and somewhat depressed husband quite well. A good movie to watch on a hot, rainy summer night.

Could have done a better film with this premise. The first two thirds of the movie, where it was much more of a psychological story was much better than the denouement where some small amount of action was attempted. Jeff Fahey's performance was consistently good. It's good to see an actor who doesn't look like such a pretty boy. Sean Young was good at the beginning, but by the end, she had given in to the script.