Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt

Jesse Stone, the police chief of the coastal town of Paradise, is drawn back into the job after his successor is killed by a car bomb. The new chief and another officer died when their patrol car exploded, and money and drugs were found in the trunk. Hired again to lead the department, Jesse sets out to find whoever was responsible, working largely on his own after key colleagues resign. The investigation leads him through misleading clues toward a mob-connected double homicide, and the trail points to someone he knows.

This is the eighth of nine television films directed by Robert Harmon, whose other work includes The Hitcher, Gotti and the earlier Jesse Stone entries Stone Cold, Death in Paradise, Night Passage and Sea Change. Tom Selleck, who also wrote the screenplay with Michael Brandman, stars as Jesse; Kathy Baker, Kohl Sudduth, Gloria Reuben, Stephen McHattie and William Sadler appear alongside him. Twenty-two cast members and forty-five crew are credited.

The film runs eighty-seven minutes and was released in 2012. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.1 from around 4,500 votes, while on TMDB it has a 6.8 from roughly ninety votes, a smaller sample. Both sit in similar territory, suggesting a generally favourable response from viewers of the series, with the much larger IMDb tally carrying more weight.