| Director: | Frederick King Keller |
| Music: | Velton Ray Bunch |
| Producer: | Michael J. Maschio |
| Runtime: | 96 minutes |
| Network: | TNT |
The Pretender 2001 (also called Pretender 2001) is an American made-for-television action drama film and the first of The Pretender franchise of movies to air after the series was cancelled by NBC. It was originally released on American cable channel TNT on January 22, 2001, written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle, directed by Frederick King Keller and starring Michael T. Weiss.
The story reunites the entire cast from the series, effectively picking up where the season four cliffhanger ended. Jarod (Michael T. Weiss), Ethan, and Miss Parker (Andrea Parker) are alive after the bomb explosion on the train. Jarod is now posing as an agent of the National Security Agency; he is part of a task force assembled to find the "Chameleon", a killer who displays all the adaptive traits of a Pretender.
The Centre is forced to put its hunt for Jarod on hold after its administrator, Mr. Parker (Harve Presnell) is abducted. Miss Parker discovers that William Raines (Richard Marcus) is still alive, despite allegedly being shot dead by her father. Her brother, Mr. Lyle (James Denton), attempts to finish Raines off, but Miss Parker manages to spirit him away and hide him in her house. In return, Raines agrees to shed light on who might have kidnapped her father.
Jarod begins receiving taunting clues from the Chameleon, which leads him to believe that the killer holds a grudge against him personally. This revelation takes Jarod back to the days leading up to his escape from the Centre; he did not originally plan to leave alone. Jarod hatched a plan with two fellow Pretenders, including a man named Alex (Peter Outerbridge), to escape from the facility together. Unfortunately, Alex was captured during their escape. He was swiftly sent out of the country and endured hideous torture by his captors; Alex now wants revenge on Jarod as a result. Observing that Jarod's search for his biological family has allowed the Centre to continue to dominate him, Alex took the opposite path by finding his own family and then murdering them. From his perspective, this has 'freed' him from the Centre's control; however, he is still not satisfied and kidnaps Mr. Parker with the intent of killing him too.
After incriminating evidence that points to Jarod is left behind by Alex, Jarod's partners at the NSA suspect him of being the "Chameleon." The Centre's programmer, Broots (Jon Gries), is on Jarod's trail when he is swept up in the NSA investigation and thrown into an interrogation room. Jarod immediately recognizes Broots, but decides to cover up for him rather than risk exposing them both. As Jarod is escorting Broots out of the NSA building, Jarod's partners move in to arrest them both. Jarod flees in a vehicle with Broots in tow, then later ditches him by the side of the road.
At the climax, Jarod thwarts Alex's next assassination and helps free Mr. Parker. Before he commits suicide, Alex gloats that the truth of Jarod's true identity will die with him. Mr. Parker is injured during the struggle and rendered catatonic. As Jarod and Miss Parker exchange words over the phone, both of them receive an anonymous email simultaneously; the message contains an image of two women, the mothers of Miss Parker and Jarod, standing together. The email is revealed to have been sent by Mr. Raines himself, apparently as a show of thanks for rescuing him.
The movie earned a 4.4 Nielsen rating, and 5.538 million viewers making it one of the top ten primetime shows on cable for January 2001.[1] [2]