Code of Ethics

Rhode Island is the real star of Code of Ethics. With some judicious editing and a different sound track, the Chamber of Commerce could distribute it. Whether we're swooping above downtown Providence or North Road in Jamestown, or are wheeling down Benefit Street on the East Side or prowling a cocktail party, Brian Heller's photography is luscious. As colorful as the occasional nasal Cranston whines and high hair.

Jo DeAngelo (Melissa Leo) receives a CD-ROM game that immediately steals a list of Medicaid fraud perpetrators in the database at Medisys, where she works. Eventually, these people start turning up dead, with their hands sewn shut, pumped full of drugs. For some reason, the killer wants Jo to play the game and select the next victims. Co-written by its director, Dawn Radican, the best moments in the overly complex story are the fleeting glimpses of characters when they are just people, free of their plot obligations. (Jo practicing pronouncing the r's in "incorporated" and "provider." Trinity's Barbara Orson as a state bureaucrat giggling over her pretty-boy collage.) While Leo doesn't spark Jo to the vitality we need to feel desperate with her, there is entertaining support by Olinda Turturro as her friend Claudia and Chevi Colton as her disco-prone grandmother.

Flitting among dozens of locations makes restless energy the film's strong suit, but you can't help but notice threadbare patches. Shaky storytelling and some wince-inducing false notes in dialogue and action are a lot to overcome. Much of the early exposition and CD animation tries hard to engage our fascination but mostly postpones things happening; after all, a long-delayed first murder could have propelled us into the menace under the opening credits. Jo's romantic relationship with Dr. Martin Loring (Jonathan Walker) is as about as unconvincing as they get, starting with an unprovoked pasta-flinging tiff that comes out of the blue. He's written as Super Creep, yet she takes him back without so much as a lobotomy. By the time the killer is chasing her, running through the State House and zipping in boats down the Providence River, we're not expecting much. So when the Bad Guy throws a net at her, misses and still hauls her in, we're not surprised. The makers of Code of Ethics deserve an encouraging chuck on the chin for their hard work, but should be prepared for less kindly gestures from moviegoers at large. At Showcase Cinemas.

-- Bill Rodriguez