TV REVIEW : ‘Moment of Truth’ Lacks Needed Grit

Dennis Franz is much more credible on “NYPD Blue” than he is as a naive Louisiana newspaper reporter snookered by the FBI in the methodical TV movie “Moment of Truth: Caught in the Crossfire.”

The only element this production has going for it--aside from a visually enticing New Orleans as scenic backdrop--is the edgy, Emmy Award-winning Franz. But without any particular grit or bite in this story of FBI chicanery and public corruption, he is mainly reduced to looking duped and anxious after he’s arrested for unwitting extortion as an inept informer.

What’s difficult to accept (even if the story is reportedly true) is that Franz’s reporter Gus Payne enthusiastically agrees to inform on the Louisiana Mob for the FBI despite his obvious conflict of interest. Even his editor tells him it’s OK.

Payne’s motive, however, has a crust of human truth. Rounding middle age, he’s tired of interviewing prom queens and covering City Council meetings, he wants to be a good citizen and squash crime and, yes, he likes the idea of padding his income. Even his wife (the boringly loyal Alley Mills) reluctantly goes along with his foolhardy double life.

Writers D. Victor Hawkins, Tom Nelson and Dan Levine mercifully avoid car chases and, except for a quick, opening murder on a bayou county road, they negotiate a sex-free, violence-free script. But neither the scenarists nor director Chuck Bowman compensate much in the way of an arresting plot or character twists and turns.

* “Moment of Truth: Caught in the Crossfire” airs at 8 tonight on NBC (Channels 4, 36 and 39).