WHY ROBBIE COLTRANE’S FANS WANT A ‘CRACKER’

What’s with this bloke?

He’s overweight, tieless and given to permanently wrinkled suits. He’s a boozer, a gambler, a man who’s blown his marriage and alienated his son. He can’t keep a job. His manners stink. And he smokes.

But in spite of himself, Dr. Eddie (Fitz’) Fitzgerald is as charming a hero as you are likely to meet. Charming, as in: can’t take your eyes off him. Heroic, as in: overpowering and indominable.

And for viewers who discover the “Cracker” mystery movies on the A&E; cable network, Fitz and the stories in which he finds himself are a treat--dark, complex and fascinating.

The premise is deceptively simple. Produced by Britain’s Granada Television and set in Manchester, “Cracker” is about a forensic psychologist who solves crime.

In last month’s “To Be a Somebody” (the first of the season’s three “Cracker” films), Fitz tracked down a serial murderer. On March 7 (mark your calendar), “Men Should Weep” will deal with a serial rapist.

“The Big Crunch,” which aired Feb. 7, explored the strange world of a Christian fundamentalist sect whose leader has had an affair with an innocent schoolgirl, then helped plot her gruesome murder to avert his own disgrace.

Enter Fitz.

Robbie Coltrane, best known for the 1989 comedy “Nuns on the Run,” plays Fitz, bringing a whole new meaning to the term “hunk.” A mountain of a man, he seems forever plagued by rock slides. Meanwhile, viewed from the side, he exhibits an unfortunate similarity to the oversized cartoon duck Baby Huey.

Yet as Fitz, he is nothing short of magnificent. Explore the wide open spaces of his epic face. Feel the heat of his weary but laser-piercing eyes. Hear his silver tongue, all the better for the tarnish.

Marvel at the power of his feeling for wrongdoers, the skill of his gamesmanship in nailing them. And savor his interrogations, an exercise in burning empathy and cold manipulation.

“Admit to that chocolate bar underneath your pillow,” counsels Fitz, weaving his spell. “Admit to taking the change when you’re undercharged. Admit to lust, envy, avarice. I do! And you have to admit to all those things before you can admit to what you did to Joanne.”

While Fitz is downright Sherlockian in his reading of clues, it’s not muddy footprints and telling drips of candlewax he’s tracking, but the twists and turns of the psyche.

And as skilled as he is at breaking the code in others, he is just as gifted at playing mind games on himself.

Fitz, says one exasperated observer, “can spot a guilty cough in a football crowd, and not notice World War III in your living room.”

A priest he’s interviewing immediately sizes up Fitz as a lapsed Catholic. How? “You’re so serious in your mockery,” the priest explains.

Not that Fitz isn’t honest enough with himself to admit, over drinks he can’t pay for, that his life is a mess.

Having been let go from his teaching job at the university a couple of movies ago, Fitz works for the police department on an hourly basis when a case gets sufficiently desperate for the boss to bring him aboard.

He longs for nothing more than a permanent position on the force, but it isn’t in the cards: With his compulsive nature and cocky style, Fitz drives people crazy.

The people he works with, that is.

Viewers, on the other hand, he charms and delights.