I have a confession to make. I watch the reality-TV show Bait Car. The people on it make me laugh, and they are an actor’s tutorial in adrenaline-fueled human behavior. In fact, I prefer Bait Car to the popular fiction crime shows such as Law and Order and CSI.
The problems I have with the mainstream crime soap operas are several:
No humor. I have never seen such grim people in all my life. Even the background extras don’t smile. Too many extreme close-up shots. I read an interview once with, I think, director Billy Wilder in which he complained about the over-use of close-ups today. “A close-up should be used like an exclamation point when you are writing,” he said. I totally agree with that. Too many close-ups are oppressive and manipulative.
Very little acting in the Stanislavsky sense of the word, despite the presence of some awfully talented actors. You won’t often catch them playing actions in pursuit of objectives while overcoming obstacles. Mostly, the lead crime-solver characters stand around playing with forensic toys while talking about what the crooks did recently - or what they might do after the next commercial break.
Bait Car is a crime show, too, but it is a lot more fun and contains real-life performances that can be instructive for an actor. The concept is simple enough. Police plant a decoy car in a high-crime area and wait for somebody to steal it. Then they arrest the thieves. What makes it worthwhile watching is how the cops catch the bad guys. Unbeknownst to the crooks, the bait car is rigged with hidden cameras and voice recorders. And - this is the best part - the cops can control the car with a wireless device. They can slow the car down, turn off its engine totally, lock its doors, roll up its windows and honk its horn. The hidden cameras are trained on the driver and front-seat passenger, and the images are streamed live to the police – and later, to you and me at home.
In a typical segment, we watch as the law baits the trap, leaving the car where it is sure to be seen by potential bad guys. Sure enough, after a while, one or more potential bad guys will come along and oh so casually scope out the situation, innocently looking this way and that, deciding whether to take the risk.
Eventually, they will hop in the car, start the engine and drive off. That’s when the fun begins because the car thieves think they have gotten away successfully. They laugh and high-five one another and do all kinds of funny things while stealing the car, not realizing their every move and word is being observed and recorded. The cops follow them a while to see where they are going, and then they hit the “SHUT DOWN” button. This is a really funny moment because we get to watch the perpetrators transition from happy car thieves into prison-bound felons, within about five seconds. That transition all by itself is worth the price of admission for actors.
In a segment I watched last night, a man and woman stole the car and, once seated inside, the male passenger proceeded to give driving lessons to the driver. “Don’t you know how to drive a stick shift? S_ _ t! Push that thing forward. Do you know where the clutch is? No, that’s not it! It is the other pedal!” They went on like that for a while, bickering like some new comedy act. Finally, they switched places, and the man gave the woman one of those James Bond glances that said, “If you want something done, give the job to a pro.”
In another segment, a lone thief drove the bait car (this one was a truck, actually) into his own neighborhood, rolled down the passenger window and cheerfully boasted to a friend off camera, “Hey, bro! You like my new stolen truck?” He displayed absolutely no sense that he had broken the law or that he was nervous. For him, it was party time.
And this: In one segment, there was a guy who looked like a typical Wal-Mart shopper out for his Saturday big-box run. He didn’t hesitate, walking up to the car and getting in just as if it had been parked in his own driveway. The police decided to follow after he drove off, and in a few minutes, he parked in front of an apartment complex. He got out of the car and went into the building. The police waited. Pretty soon, he came out of the apartment building and got back into the car. From our hidden camera perspective, it looked like he might have showered, shaved and changed into a real nice set of clothes. Maybe he had a date or something and just needed wheels.
The other best part of the show is when the car thieves try to talk their way out of their dismal situation. More than a few of them stand there in handcuffs, pretending to be good Samaritans. “You have the wrong idea, officer. I found the car and was taking it to the police station,” one handcuffed fellow explained. “I didn’t want somebody to steal it.” The cops always calmly nod with interest, encouraging the perp to keep digging himself a deeper hole.
That date-night guy who changed clothes wound up standing in the high beams of the parked police car while they searched his pockets. “You have any prior arrests?” asked the law. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “What was the charge?” “Grand theft auto.”
Wouldn’t you think that a guy who had already been in jail for stealing a car would at least steal something else next time? Like Pale says in Terrence McNally’s play Burn This, “People ain’t easy.” I think the fact that they ain’t makes for swell television.
Until Next Year . . . Be Safe!
