(Review originally written at 26 April 2008)
Of course every Columbo movie is a cat and mouse play between the Lieutenant and the killer but in this movie this is perhaps more the case than in any other Columbo movie. This is mostly due to Leonard Nimoy and Lt. Columbo gets on his back pretty early on during their first meeting already. There is some great interaction between those two. It's great also to see Columbo get angry for once.
Leonard Nimoy is actually one scary looking dude and he has a great villainous look over him. Too bad he never really made a career as playing villains, I'm sure he would had been just perfect for it. He shows some great acting skills in this movie. Also Peter Falk is great once more as the scruffy Lieutenant, that also suffers from insomnia and is ill (again) this time. There is always something unusual going on with him.
The movie features all of the usual Columbo ingredients and it handles them well, so therefor this movie can be regarded as a simply good and also definitely above average Columbo entry. Also the amount of relieving comedy is just enough to also regard this movie as an entertaining one, without loosing any of its credibility as a murder-mystery.
The movie its story is using a fine setting of an hospital, that seems to really suit murder mysteries. It's like the story is really much special but its strong enough to keep you interested throughout. The killer himself is also definitely clever enough to provide the movie with some good clever moments. It's also all being told in a good quick pace, which makes the movie perfectly good to watch. It's one fine put together movie. It's definitely a step up from Hy Averback's previously directed Columbo movie "Columbo: Suitable for Framing". Also makes it sort of too bad that Shirl Hendryx never delivered any more Columbo screenplays. As a matter of fact he hardly wrote anything again after this and it seems to me that it was more of a writer who wrote stage-plays instead.
A great Columbo entry that follows the usual formula and does very little wrong doing so.
8/10
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