TV REVIEW : Murderous ‘My Son Johnny’ Needs Help

The prototypically dysfunctional Cortino clan, a disturbed triangle whose three points are ineffectual mom Michele Lee and battling brothers Rick Schroder and Corin Nemic, could use some professional help. And much-needed family psychotherapy does finally get its day--in court!--in the TV movie “My Son Johnny” (airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on CBS, Channels 2 and 8).

It takes a spontaneous killing--Nemic’s offing of abusive bro’ Schroder--to get surviving family members Lee and Nemic to work through all that repressed sorrow and shame on the witness stand. Rip Torn, who plays their defense attorney with all the right moves of a confrontive shrink, is the facilitator for this healing; he’s a combination of Perry Mason and David Viscott.

After years of vicious beatings, good brother Nemic has finally snapped and given bad brother Schroder a fatal taste of lead. Nemic’s only defense is proving years of duress at Schroder’s hands, but Mom--in serious denial--isn’t up to the task of maligning her dead son’s admittedly dubious character.

“My Son Johnny” taps into a powerful familial issue: the guilt of the benign, idealistic mother who should have stepped into a destructive situation but didn’t. The impact is undercut, however, by Hollywood convention of what a courtroom drama should be.

Lee struggles valiantly to achieve a teary sort of repression (and Baltimore accent), and Schroder is a surprisingly credible hood. Nemic, meanwhile, looks appropriately addled, though he isn’t allowed too much range beyond basic persecuted discomfort. But this telepicture’s hokey flashback-on-the-stand revelations aren’t up to the task of illustrating the potent dilemmas involved.