‘Siege at Marion’ Misses the Target

One would be hard-pressed to come up with a reason for tonight’s NBC movie, “In the Line of Duty: Siege at Marion.” Except that networks see it as their duty to rely on bankable, familiar forms to attract the largest possible audience.

“Siege at Marion” (at 9 p.m. on Channels 4, 36 and 39) is the fourth in a series of “In the Line of Duty” movies that have produced big ratings for NBC.

Like the others, this one is based on a true story and depicts law-enforcement officers placing themselves in peril while attempting to apprehend crazed criminals. In this case, the setting is snowy, rural Utah, where religious fanatics who have troubled the local populace for years resist apprehension after blowing up a building.

The heavily armed polygamous sect, which includes young children, is surrounded in its farm compound by an army of cops and FBI agents who seek to resolve things peacefully and avoid a shootout. Yet . . . well, you get the idea.

On the positive side, there are credible performances by Dennis Franz as the head FBI agent and by Kyle Secor and Tess Harper as the leading fanatics. And director Charles Haid does a good job of involving you in the siege, which is just about the entire movie.

However, there are some puzzling gaps of logic in the narrative, and we never learn much about the fundamental beliefs that make the sect so dangerous. With the characters on both sides never becoming much more than abstractions, the entire story becomes the process of capture, making this entire exercise empty and essentially pointless.