A detective and a hunter/tracker team up to find a serial killer. The movie opens with a pregnant woman screaming in an OB clinic, and doctors are debating whether to save the fetus or not. The baby had Conradi–Hünermann syndrome, not Conroddy Syndrome.He/She grew up to become a serial killer seeking revenge on those involved in failing to abort him/her as a fetus.The dialog seems contrived and Lauren Holly is not convincing in her detective roll. Robert Patrick does a fair job as the tracker and brother of the first victim. The action was decent. The FBI and local police interactions were weak and not believable. The cops techniques for building a case was no really convincing or credible.

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Not that believable of a detective movie involving an Alaskan tracker of wolves and Kodiak bears using his expertise in the wild to track down a serial killer in San Francisco.Were given a hint to what were in store for in the very first moments of the movie with Dr. Orenbach,Andrew Brendt, refusing to abort a new born baby because he has "Conroddy Syndrome". Were told by Dr Orenbach's assistant Dr Green, Gerald Randolf,that a child with that illness never goes full term. How wrong Dr. Green turned out to be!The film starts out with a brutal murder in San Francisco that takes the life of Jenny Brown, Lynita Crofford, a nurse in one of the city's municipal hospitals. The word of Jenny's murder gets to her brother Sam, Robert Patrick, up in the wilds of Alaska and he shoots down to SF to help in finding his sister's killer. It's then that things get a bit entangled with the SFPD not wanting this outsider to get involved in the biggest murder case in it's history since the Zodiac Killer! Uncovering not only clues about the killer that the police missed Sam, ruggedly handsome devil that he is, also becomes very romantically involved with the top cop on the case Det. Buckley Clarke, Lauren Holly. Det. Clarke is not only turned on by Sam's ruggedly good looks and pioneering 19th century lifestyle, he doesn't believe in using modern bathroom facilities, but also his unique ability in digging up clues about the killer. It's that uncanny tracking ability-with a walking stick- on Sam's part that Det. Clarke, against the wishes of her superiors, in no time at all let's him take over, off the record, the entire investigation!As it turns out the killer had a deep grudge against those in the medical profession who were responsible from bringing him into the world. Were somehow made to feel that the doctor who in accordance to his upholding the Hippocratic Oath, as well as the child's mother's wishes, in his deciding to let the child, regardless of the condition that it finds itself in, to be born is some kind of crazed mad scientist or religious fanatic! Where in reality he was only doing what he was sworn to do as a man of medicine!Sam's ability to track the killer down leads to a brick wall as his trail seems to come to a sudden end every time he and his partner and now lover Det. Clarke get out of the dark woods, where the killer always makes his escape, and into civilization which for some reason it suddenly ends at a bus stop or shelter! Even though it should be obvious to someone like Sam who's especially good in tracking down fugitives, or wild animals, what the significance of the bus stop is it takes almost the entire movie for him to find that out! And it's not Sam but Det. Clarke, being more in touch with big city life, who ends up uncovering that great mystery!Once the cat, or serial killer, is out of the bag, or intensive care, the movie starts to get going into full toddle. The frail killer who's supposed to be a total invalid ends up taking on an entire unite of the SFPD with a squad of tough as nails SWAT personnel thrown in and ends up making mince meat out of them! So much in him being, according to Dr. Green, not fit or healthy enough to be allowed to be born!What the killer's real problems were turned out to be mental not physical which took years to manifest themselves and could not have been discovered at the time of his birth. This all made the assumption that his suffering from "Conroddy Syndrome", whatever that is, which was supposed to prevent from living past infancy, according to Dr.Green, turned out to be totally unfounded!

I mean really, with the tons of absolute mind numbing drivel out there, to call this movie 'Horrible' is just plain goofy! (Notice my stunning logic at play...) Seriously though, for a pretty much straight forward crime thriller WITHOUT a lot of cutesy self-referential style overkill that we see CONSTANTLY today, it is a good, sold, entertaining film. In a word (or a few) the STORY is good. The writing is just fine; I mean, we're not talking David Mamet here or anything but the writing is solid. The acting is perfectly fine too; no Oscar winning performances but they fit the parts. This isn't a spoiler but as far as the acting and writing only are concerned in a VERY minor scene, I really liked the little interplay between the two leads when she tells him that she is 'in charge'; her delivery is great and his responses are perfect.The direction is very competent and somewhat stylized but without detracting from the story.The Alaska locations along with the city are used quite well. The cinematography is above average with some nice and contributory stylization without overdoing it. In other words, there are some photographic stylizations, but there aren't like a friggin' TON of edits just 'because'...Yes, okay... if you want to be TOTALLY anal about it, the premise is a bit far-fetched, but what the hell, it is a decent, fairly gripping thriller. I like Robert Patrick; he just has a nice laid back style which fits his role well. And, the killer, when you do figure out who the person is, is kind of a neat reveal, although perhaps a little far fetched. Definitely original though! Also, something that I personally really appreciate is that there is a refreshing lack of 'cliches', thank Goodness! The lead woman although strong, as she has to be to do her job, THANKFULLY does NOT come across as some superficial b*tch with an attitude (Gee, how many times have we seen that one...?) She has a genuine self-effacing sense of humour which is VERY refreshing. She pulls that off well. Even the 'love' scene (c'mon, you KNOW there is gonna be one) is introduced fairly believably, again thankfully WITHOUT all the cutesypie, vomitously (I know that's not a word but it should be) phony 'foreplay' that we normally have to endure. In a minor related note, to show the director's subtlety, the love scene itself is well photographed and edited with nice dissolve shots of Alaska. Sounds corny, I know, but it works very nicely : )Believe me, there are a LOT worse ways to spend your time, even where watching movies are concerned. I guess 'competent' and 'entertaining' are the words best to describe the film. Like I mentioned before, with all the TRULY horrible, lame, and insulting stuff out there I think this film is a good go! Oh, to comment back on the scene which involves the 'first' suspect, I COMPLETELY disagree with Mr. SamHeartsMovies. I thought that was a neat little stylized and very entertaining insertion into the film; it provided not only some basic straight forward action but I personally thought the character and his 'surroundings' had a nice surreal touch (of course I LOVE David Lynch too : ) So, I would say that out of the hundreds, if not thousands of crime thrillers that I've seen, this one solidly falls in with the better ones. Just don't expect the brilliance of 'THE USUAL SUSPECTS' or 'CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND' or something at THAT level. But, compared to the usual police thriller it is definitely above average,fun, and entertaining.I gave this an '8' to compensate a little for what I consider an inaccurately LOW 5.x that it has now. Honestly, I would give it a solid 6.5.

"Pavement" is a very ordinary serial killer flick which sticks Holly out in front as a homicide investigator who teams up with Patrick as an Alaskan wilderness tracker (yeah, right) and together they set out to solve a killing spree with Capetown standing in for San Francisco. The film is full of nonsequiturs and plot holes, does nothing to distinguish itself, and fails to beg an emotional investment leaving the viewer little more than a detached voyeur. In addition the whole tracking thing is silly, the brief sex scene is hokey, and the production is slapped together with a scene here and a scene there cropped tightly so as to not reveal the Capetown environs. In spite of all that, the film does gather momentum, delivers some action and a wisp of suspense, and should make for a nominal no-brainer couch potato watch for those into murder mysteries. (C)