TV Reviews : ‘The Chase’ Spins Its Wheels as Docudrama

“The Chase,” which airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on Channels 4, 36 and 39, is, as we might figure, about a chase--a wild and crazy and “fact-based” chase, but a chase nonetheless. It’s a docudrama about the pursuit of a hold-up man three years ago in Denver, where a helicopter news team from the city’s KCNC-TV led the way for what would seem to be the whole police force.

To make a 2-hour movie of it, the producers have encircled the episode with over-extended little dramas about several people caught up in the event. That is: Phillip Hutchinson (played with energetic sleaze by Casey Siemaszko), a convicted kidnaper and armed robber who escapes from a Texas prison, has some problem with his mother; the helicopter pilot really wants to be a TV weatherman; the hostage is having bad luck and may have to sell his truck; the credit union teller who trips the silent alarm on the robber has a weight problem and is afraid to give a valentine to the good-looking young office manager.

Is “The Chase” worth the trip? Not really.