TV Reviews : Bertinelli Is a D.A., Dad Is a Crooked Cop

Valerie Bertinelli, for some unfathomable reason, continues to be overlooked for motion pictures. It’s TV’s good fortune: She’s become the queen of the television movie.

This time she plays a rookie D.A. whose ambition and idealism lead her right to the crooked doorstep of her own dad in “What She Doesn’t Know” (at 9 p.m. Sunday on NBC, Channels 4, 36 and 39).

The script by Andy Tennant (from a story by Tim Stack) crackles, and Kevin Dobson’s direction surges, which translates into formidable competition for CBS’ closing Winter Olympics ceremony.

Bertinelli is a solid enough actress to be able to absorb her good looks inside her character. In this case, her dilemma is a moral one that touches at the heart of familial blood. In her dogged (and self-serving) interrogation of a young murder accomplice, she runs smack into evidence that her loving father, a veteran New York detective, has been banking mob bribery money that paid for her education at Harvard.

Crooked cop yarns are legion, and this one doesn’t exactly break new ground. But the father is so humanly fallible in the bulky figure of George Dzunda that his story dovetails strongly into a tale of rackets, violence and cockeyed justice.

Finally, what lifts the show a notch above its genre is its strong supporting cast and its crisp execution. Shot in Pittsburgh, (which is fast becoming a popular location for gritty atmosphere), most of the scenes simmer even when the camera isn’t moving. And one sequence, a hit man’s attempt to gun down a protected witness, is a tight gem of direction, camera work and editing.