QUICK FLICKS BEST FAST FORGOTTEN.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

HERE'S A HANDY bit of advice for TV docudrama producers: If a built-in audience for a torn-from-the-headlines story is contingent on rushing a movie through production so quickly no one involved has a chance to think, then more than likely, you shouldn't bother. There's little chance to make a rush-job more than a spotty amalgam pasted together with facts from news stories and, quite likely, the real story will take some journalistic digging to truly unearth.

Besides, if it's so marginal or tabloid-y an event that people will have mainly forgotten it a year later, there's probably not enough inherent drama in the story in the first place.

Cases in point: NBC's ``Saving Jessica Lynch'' and CBS' ``The Elizabeth Smart Story.''

History, quite simply, is not written in TV-movie time, and when something like ``Saving Jessica Lynch'' appears, when the outcome in the war in Iraq is still claiming American lives, and when the film declares up front, ``Some characters, scenes and events in whole or in part have been created for dramatic purposes,'' its very existence beyond a network sweeps stunt is dubious.

Nothing in NBC's film passes the credibility test: Production began before the complete story had come in (if, in fact, it has yet come in), so NBC just bought the rights to the story of the Iraqi attorney (played by Nicholas Guilak), who claimed to have helped in the rescue of Lynch.

Early scenes in ``Saving Jessica Lynch'' of American troops in Iraq are risibly bogus, clearly just a bunch of actors on a set exchanging lines, with awkwardly pregnant pauses between them. Protracted shots of armored vehicles tooling through the desert follow, saving on the bother of having to write dialogue. A sleepwalker moves with a more assertive pace. There are utterly pointless flashbacks into Lynch's life; one suspects the middle of a war zone is probably not a place that invites such reveries.

Lynch (Laura Regan) is depicted as the most passive character ever to get her name in the title of a film - she does little more beyond yelp in the back of a transport vehicle and lie on a hospital bed. For Lynch, the filmmakers located the blankest, most uninteresting actress possible. But the film is insulting to all who were actually involved: As many have pointed out, she was hardly the only one captured, but she hit the trifecta of being female, blond and attractive, making her a magnet for media attention. The rescue of the other captured soldiers merits a mere desultory title card at the film's conclusion.

The film aspires to relevance by depicting the travails of the Iraqi who helped facilitate her rescue, but scarcely explains his motivation, beyond the campily caustic accusation of his wife: ``This is all your mother's fault,'' she grumbles, ``she poisoned your mind with all those John Wayne movies she used to show you!''

The rescue, as later reports indicated following the initial breathless, summer-movie-style narratives, is pretty anticlimactic. The sloppiness of the film's production is underscored in a scene in which an explosive charge ignites before a truck actually makes contact with its target. The final title card explains that Lynch ``reportedly'' plans to marry a soldier - what, they couldn't be bothered to chase down even one fact?

At least ``The Elizabeth Smart Story'' boasts a little more verisimilitude, as well as a couple of more compelling scenes of the investigation. But it also, for entertainment's sake, ignores a grisly particular: The teenager's abductors were charged with, among myriad other things, aggravated sexual assault. And this is something that neither you, quite reasonably, nor the filmmakers, quite cynically, want to consider.

CBS press releases unfortunately describe Elizabeth's kidnapping as one that ``captivated the nation,'' as if it were a magical, heart-warming story. The truth, of course, is significantly grimmer, as is the story that is presented in a sanitized-for-America's-consumption by CBS tonight.

It opens with beatific images of the perfect family: Elizabeth (Amber Marshall) playing the harp; her family gathered in a prayer circle. The depiction of the religious zealot (Tom Everett, wearing a fright wig on his chin) who grabbed Smart plays as frequently comical: ``Obedience leads to perfect love!'' he screams at his dim-bulb adherent (Hollis McLaren).

Otherwise, it follows the story much as those who followed it in the mainstream media followed it, with few deviations beyond those of rank speculation. Though the film's titles play a la CBS' ``Without a Trace''( ``Missing 3 hours,'' etc.), why didn't they just cast Anthony LaPaglia and Eric Close in the first place? It ends up as an ad for the Fox network's ``America's Most Wanted,'' which actually helped crack the case.

Dylan Baker (``The Road to Perdition,'' ``Happiness'') essays Elizabeth's father as a skittish wimp; Baker should vow after this and the failed sitcom ``The Pitts'': no more television roles.

Like ``Lynch,'' ``Smart's'' realism is suspect: Elizabeth's bed is strewn in crime-scene tape but the rest of her bedroom is not, and in one scene, a blonde in a powder-blue power ensemble, ostensibly playing a journalist, declares: ``I have never seen anything like the scope of this search - it seems like the whole world feels they have lost Elizabeth.'' Even by TV- news standards, that's lame.

Thankfully, authorities discovered Elizabeth, but this film just feels like another violation.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

SAVING JESSICA LYNCH - One and one half stars

What: Quickie movie on the rescue of the Army's most famous supply private during the war in Iraq.

Where: NBC (Channel 4).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: Doesn't pass the credibility test.

THE ELIZABETH SMART STORY - Two stars

What: Quickie movie on the rescue of the kidnapped teenage girl in Utah.

Where: CBS (Channel 2).

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: The film doesn't come right out and say it, but ick..

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Laura Regan portrays former Iraq POW Pvt. Jessica Lynch on NBC.

(2) Amber Marshall plays Utah kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart on CBS.