The FanGirlTastic offices are abuzz this morning with the news that badass actress Carla Gugino will star as a badass cop in a hopefully badass adaptation of author Lisa Gardner's best-selling suspense thriller, Hide. Well, perhaps it's not the whole office that's abuzz. Maybe it's just me. But, trust me, I'm excited enough for everyone.
In Hide, part of a new weekly TNT series of dramas based on true-crime tales and fictional mysteries, Gugino's tough Boston Police Detective D.D. Warren is on the case when the mummified bodies of six missing women are found in an abandoned mental institution. Things get complicated when all clues point to a murderer who seems to have risen from the dead.
Hide, written by Janet Brownell and directed by John Gray, is one of six contemporary crime flicks made for the TNT Tuesday Night Mystery franchise set to air in November. It's reported that some of these movies will be considered for ongoing series and, due to the recent phenomenon that finds respected film actresses finding success on the small screen as cops, I'm willing to bet that Hide is one of them.
Gugino has forged a solid career working steadily, on stage and screen, in both leading and supporting roles portraying tough, complicated women (when she's not paying the bills in generic family fare). But it's on TV that she's had her best chance to shine. In 2003, Gugino starred in a wonderful ABC series called Karen Sisco, based on the lead character from Elmore Leonard's crime novel Out of Sight. Sadly, the network pulled the plug after only a few episodes despite overwhelming critical acclaim and glowing praise from Leonard himself.
I'm not familiar with Lisa Gardner's work, but Hide has been called "an unusual and effective thriller" that "grabs the reader with a stranglehold." With any luck, it will translate into a worthwhile vehicle for Gugino's considerable talents. Or, at least, one that will stay on the road longer than Karen Sisco.
