Meh. While I love "Hawaii Five-O", I must admit that "The Guarnerius Caper" is not among their best episodes. It's not bad...just not all that great.
A visiting Russian violinist (Ed Flanders--who was also seen in the previous season) has brought his extraordinarily rare and irreplaceable violin with him. When the Guarnerius is accidentally stolen by a couple lunk-headed car thieves, his Russian "handler" (i.e., the secret policeman who accompanies him to prevent him from defecting) sees this as a chance for some anti-American propaganda. This isn't surprising, as the handler is played by Albert Paulsen--a guy who ALWAYS plays bad guys or at least real jerks in such shows as "Mission: Impossible" and "Hawaii Five-O". This is a bit of a shortcoming, as when you see the likes of him or John Calicos or Anthony Zerbe you KNOW they won't play nice characters!! Another shortcoming of the show is that the bad guys are incredibly obnoxious, stupid and just plain jerks. It's hard to imagine that the police didn't put these guys in prison a long time before or that they could actually figure out how to steal and strip cars...they were THAT stupid and annoying. I think the show would have played MUCH better had they been a bit brighter and less obvious.
And finally, the end had a bit problem because in a move that smacked of ridiculousness, McGarrett ON HIS OWN, tracked down the baddies and defeated all three of them AND saved the priceless violin!! Overall, an interesting idea for an episode but not among their strongest. There are just too many "duh" moments to make this anything special.
A visiting Russian violinist (Ed Flanders--who was also seen in the previous season) has brought his extraordinarily rare and irreplaceable violin with him. When the Guarnerius is accidentally stolen by a couple lunk-headed car thieves, his Russian "handler" (i.e., the secret policeman who accompanies him to prevent him from defecting) sees this as a chance for some anti-American propaganda. This isn't surprising, as the handler is played by Albert Paulsen--a guy who ALWAYS plays bad guys or at least real jerks in such shows as "Mission: Impossible" and "Hawaii Five-O". This is a bit of a shortcoming, as when you see the likes of him or John Calicos or Anthony Zerbe you KNOW they won't play nice characters!! Another shortcoming of the show is that the bad guys are incredibly obnoxious, stupid and just plain jerks. It's hard to imagine that the police didn't put these guys in prison a long time before or that they could actually figure out how to steal and strip cars...they were THAT stupid and annoying. I think the show would have played MUCH better had they been a bit brighter and less obvious.
And finally, the end had a bit problem because in a move that smacked of ridiculousness, McGarrett ON HIS OWN, tracked down the baddies and defeated all three of them AND saved the priceless violin!! Overall, an interesting idea for an episode but not among their strongest. There are just too many "duh" moments to make this anything special.
