Home » Film & TV » Canadian Television » CTV's Milgaard: Justice at Last?

CTV's Milgaard: Justice at Last?

© Jael Mehr

In this day of made-for-TV "true crime" movies and the thousands of books available on various crimes, it's not unusual to find a new work on the latest hot crime. Most fans of true crime novels would pass over a story of this type. Until 1997, David Milgaard was just another hippie who raped and killed a single person on a cold Saskatchewan morning. On July 18 of that year, DNA evidence proved that David Milgaard had been wrongly accused, and had spent twenty-two years of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit -- more than half of his life.

The film should not be regarded as the gospel truth. It is the filmmakers vision of the truth. But there is no doubt whatsoever that David Milgaard was unjustly imprisoned. It's a rather unique perspective in Canadian telefilms, as gritty and hard as they come. David Milgaard isn't presented as some law-abiding, happy-go-lucky young man who just happened to be in the wrong place. The picture of Milgaard given as a young man can be summed up in three words: sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.

Ian Tracey, best known to Canadians right now for his starring role in CBC's "Da Vinci's Inquest", does an excellent job as David Milgaard. This is probably Tracey's strongest role to date, utilizing all of this actor's talents. Unfortunately, he is miscast. While his portrayal of Milgaard is both believable and touching, portraying everything from tragedy to arrogance to the teenage belief in immortality, I could no more buy Tracey as a 16-year-old Milgaard than I could by Gabrielle Rose as a 60-something Joyce Milgaard. For the short length of time that we saw the teenage Milgaard, CTV should have hired a teenager to play the role.

Tracey isn't the only talented Canadian to appear in "Milgaard". Reagan Pasternak is believable as Milgaard's younger sister, who aided in his second escape from prison in 1980. Joseph Griffin is both creepy and lucky in his portrayal of Larry Fisher, the rapist who spent 23 years in a Canadian prison for his crimes, and is the obvious guilty party according to the film. Jaimz Woolvett and Sabrina Grdevich (who both star with Tracey in the 1998/1999 two-part season finale of "Da Vinci's Inquest") may not match the ages of their characters, but they carry off the roles admirably. Tom Melissis is a scene-stealer in his role as David Asper, one of the men who works to free David. And last but not least, Gabrielle Rose, who does an excellent job of making the viewer see Joyce Milgaard's pain.

The copyright of the article CTV's Milgaard: Justice at Last? in Canadian Television is owned by . Permission to republish CTV's Milgaard: Justice at Last? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.