TV Reviews : ‘Sketch Artist’ Draws a Soft-Porn Mystery

In the opening minutes of the L.A. cop drama “Sketch Artist” (at 9 tonight on Showtime), the camera pans over a langorous, bare-chested brunette, her back deeply arched over a table and hair cascading to the floor while her lover hovers off-camera. Behind them a parade of fashion models, projected on a home video screen, provide an exotic touch. You would almost think it was a commercial.

Unlike sex in network TV movies, movies made for cable can indulge soft porn, and “Sketch Artist,” an otherwise competent but rudimentary murder story, is a perfect example of the naked difference between cable and the networks--when cable chooses to exploit it.

Later on, the story’s attractive co-stars (Sean Young’s interior decorator and Jeff Fahey’s police sketch artist) patch up a simmering estrangement by tearing each other’s clothes off, legs entangling one another like grappling hooks. It’s almost a replay of the first love scene except the characters are different.

“Sketch Artist,” written by Michael Angeli and directed by Phedon Papamichael, is merely the latest example of how cable movies have achieved near-parity with theatrical movies when it comes to unharnessed sexual expression. Except cable doesn’t have to put ratings on its movies.

Meanwhile, back on the streets of L.A., which the movie does a good job of capturing from the front-seat point of view of beat-up old Dodges and Fords, Fahey’s composite artist can’t shake the gnawing suspicion that he’s just sketched a murder suspect for the police who looks (gulp!) exactly like his wife.

That sets in motion a thicket of lies and deception. Drew Barrymore, playing a sassy courier, is dusted off early. As the suspected wife, Young’s role is more decorous than dramatic. Most everybody in this world (except Frank McCrae’s lovable, paunchy sidekick cop) looks good, especially that long-haired brunette with the arched back (Charlotte Lewis, who shows up later in jeans).