ST. BART BREAKDOWN
by Don Bruns
A rock ’n’ roll reporter seeks a killer interview with a rock ’n’ roll producer and almost gets it, but not in a nice way.
The Chicago Tribune has suddenly decided that Danny Murtz could be the stuff of major headlines. He’s always loomed large in the music industry, with the gold and platinum discs to prove it. But that’s not why the Trib’s Jeff Bloomfield has illustrious rock ’n’ roll journalist Mick Sever (Barbados Heat, 2003, etc.) sitting in his office. Bloomfield’s concerned with a pair of pretty women connected for a time to Murtz and then inexplicably disconnected from everyone. Now Bloomfield smells blood, and if Mick’s interview can make some sort of case, there’s a big bonus in it for him. Mick signs on and flies to St. Bart, that tiny bit of fat-cat paradise in the Caribbean, where the “Howard Hughes of the music industry” is currently avoiding the madding crowd, except of course for the young, toothsome, impressionable portion of it. While Mick waits for the great man to see him, the atmosphere is changed by his brush with death. Maybe it’s an accident. But two accidents? Clearly there’s a killer out there with a secret he doesn’t want to share with Mick.
An interesting background can’t redeem derivative characters, lifeless dialogue and a story line that wants to rock but mostly falls short.