FROM HOLLYWOOD TO ... NORTH HOLLYWOOD SELF-OBSESSED SCREENWRITERS, COURAGEOUS COPS IN TV MOVIES.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

IT'S IRONIC that Showtime's new limited series about sex- and X-addled Hollywood screenwriters, ``Out of Order,'' debuts the same night that FX premieres its docudrama about the notorious 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery, ``44 Minutes.'' For while you can hear Eric Stolz, portraying a comfy screenwriter who begs his viewers, ``Don't hold it against me, OK?'' for driving a Mercedes, his ostensibly just reward for writing movies in which the main characters are killer bears and comic-book heroes, you can also watch real-life, outmatched, insanely courageous L.A. cops - whose salaries only allow them domestic cars - matching their handguns against psychos with AK-47s.

Worst things first. ``Out of Order,'' a semi-autobiographical series from creators Wayne and Donna Powers, depicts the lives of married screenwriters, Mark (Eric Stolz) and Lorna (Felicity Huffman), who kvetch endlessly about their troubled personal lives and their fading muses. Mark is tempted by friends and neighbors (Kim Dickson as a fellow soccer parent with an erotic navel piercing, Justine Bateman as a promiscuous family pal), while Lorna deals with her lousy childhood by ingesting myriad chemicals, prescribed to illegal.

Mark tells us early on that he's always imagined his life is a movie - sure enough, some shots have him wandering in front of cameras. Notably, he didn't specify whether it's a good movie.

He considers himself virtuous because he spurns advances from Bateman's character - he's not attracted to her enough - yet pursues Dickson's soccer mom, scoring with her during a party where everyone takes Ecstasy. There, everyone gets naked and hops into the hot tub, yet they all disappear conveniently enough to allow him an intimate moment with his object of desire in his swimming pool. During their erotic underwater encounter, your response will likely be, ``Wow - good lung capacity.''

Meanwhile, Lorna's getting lost with a loser friend (Huffman's real-life husband, William H. Macy), ending up so wasted she can't witness their son's school or extracurricular activities.

The Powerses have created a program that their personal peer group might appreciate (Steven Spielberg figures vaguely into the story) but one with which few outside of Los Angeles will likely relate. This, despite Mark's many mea culpas (``Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please don't judge me so harshly,'' he says, more than once, in sundry permutations). He describes his moments with Dickson's character as better than time with his shrink, which one might reasonably believe is true of ``Out of Order'' in general.

The cast's work is capable and nuanced, but then, in a lot of ways, they're simply playing variations on everyone they've ever known. At one point, Mark and Lorna have an argument over their work - Mark demands of Lorna, if his writing without her input is so awful, what should he then do? ``You're supposed to write better!'' she barks.

No argument here.

At the end of tonight's episode of ``Out of Order,'' the characters rise as one and declare that they're guilty of but one thing: ``of being human.''

In ``44 Minutes,'' the sundry policemen who were called to duty on Feb. 28, 1997, were only human, as well, but they managed something beyond whining and infidelity.

No one who was in Los Angeles on that day will forget crowding around TVs as the drama of that bank robbery unfolded on TV. Two men in body armor, armed with insane amounts of artillery, blew holes in everything in sight - yet cops, despite being seriously outgunned, did not yield.

FX's ``44 Minutes'' spends its first half-hour on rudimentary character studies and includes faux interviews throughout, pointing out that the heist took place at a time of trial for the LAPD - the department was under fire for sundry dubious activities, not to mention its handling of the O.J. Simpson case. When the day was over, however, the city's citizenry had a newfound respect for its cops' courage.

The film opens with tight shots of various characters loading bullets into their chambers, almost as if it's an NRA porn film. Once the robbery begins, ``44 Minutes'' becomes an intense crime procedural, one that fans of ``CSI'' and ``Without a Trace'' will fully appreciate.

Michael Madsen, Mario Van Peebles and Ron Livingston star as cops who put their lives on the line. You may wonder, why didn't they think to aim at body parts not covered by armor sooner?

But it's an adrenalin-charged film that essays that horrible day and its merciful aftermath: A dozen cops and numerous bystanders were shot, but miraculously, none of them were killed. It will resonate with local viewers because it depicts men and women who were our friends, neighbors and protectors whose lives were genuinely on the line, not just folks who wrote a movie about an angry bear.

44 MINUTES - Three stars

What: Docudrama about the infamous 1997 North Hollywood bank shootout.

Where: FX.

When: 8 tonight.

In a nutshell: Taut depiction of a shocking crime and its courageous resolution.

OUT OF ORDER - Two stars

What: Hollywood screenwriters endure lives of pampered torment.

Where: Showtime.

When: 10 tonight.

In a nutshell: This is navel-gazing, pierced or not, of a hermetically sealed nature.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Eric Stoltz and Felicity Huffman are screenwriters with fidelity and substance-abuse problems in ``Out of Order.''

(2 -- color) Mario Van Peebles is one of the police officers who face down the well-armed bank robbers of ``44 Minutes,'' a TV movie about the 1997 North Hollywood shootout.