SPOILERS.
It would be hard for anyone to argue that this made-for-TV movie had much going for it. A beauty contest winner whose sister is kidnapped. A family disrupted. A cast no one has heard of except William Devane.
But this isn't as bad as it could have been. First of all, no one should be embarrassed by the performances turned in. William Devane is almost always reliable, like so many other actors who never made it into the top ranks but seldom disappoint -- Tom Skerrit and Bill Macy among others. We more or less know what to expect and, although the roles may be nearly impossible to play, the performances will not sink into awfulness. Jen Ryan isn't as bad as I'd anticipated either. And she's got everything stacked against her. She's absolutely gorgeous, a kind of living Barbie doll with giant-sized lips and cool blue eyes that belong in the Guiness Book of World Records. And she sings too (in French) as part of her beauty contest routine and she flounces around in the most flowery and feminine dresses designable. She's compelled to look frightened and do some weeping. It all ought to fall flat but it doesn't. She may or may not have much range -- it's difficult to tell- but what skills she has work for her here. The rest of the characters don't have much to do. The heartbroken family is a generic heartbroken family. The only other outstanding part, and again there isn't much screen time available, is that of the murderer, played by a guy named -- get this -- Butch Slade. He plays an overweight and unattractive man whose face seems to be all long unkempt black beard and no frontal lobes. Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? He's as nutty as a fruitcake but he loves Jen Ryan desperately, even though his idea of "love" may be a little different from yours and mine. (It involves giving the girl a choice of shooting, overdosing, or strangulation.) He's great in the role of the madman. When he first appears in court, chained, manacled, hobbled, the first thing he does is smile at Jen Ryan, call out her name, and stumble towards her as if to embrace her. His attraction towards her is understandable. After all, that's what "Miss South Carolina" contests are all about, isn't it?
The writers seem to have had a bit of a tough job filling the time slot. There are woeful lapses into cliche. Ryan, more beautiful than smart, under threat of kidnap and miserable death, nevertheless visits her deserted high school alone, is threatened by mysterious shadows and suspicious figures, and winds up in one of those scenes where the poor girl runs screaming down empty hallways and clanging against doors locked with thirty-pound chains. See the original "Cape Fear" for a better example of this device.
One of the reasons the writers may have had trouble is that after the initial kidnapping, nothing much exciting happens. The killer makes nine phone calls to Ryan but the police fail every time in their attempts to catch him. When the penny does finally drop, they get him pronto and there is time only for five minutes in the courtroom before we cut to Jen Ryan in her church, giving the congregation a speech about her dead sister meant to be spiritually uplifting but which I can't interpret as carrying any message other than, "**** happens," before she begins to sing "Amazing Grace," a hymn so pleasant that I wish it weren't so overused.
Well I don't mean this to sound too nasty. It gets the job done and perhaps a bit more. I don't know what happened to Butch Slade's character. I can understand why a lot of people would want him executed but he'd serve humanity better if he lived a long life under constant psychiatric study.
It would be hard for anyone to argue that this made-for-TV movie had much going for it. A beauty contest winner whose sister is kidnapped. A family disrupted. A cast no one has heard of except William Devane.
But this isn't as bad as it could have been. First of all, no one should be embarrassed by the performances turned in. William Devane is almost always reliable, like so many other actors who never made it into the top ranks but seldom disappoint -- Tom Skerrit and Bill Macy among others. We more or less know what to expect and, although the roles may be nearly impossible to play, the performances will not sink into awfulness. Jen Ryan isn't as bad as I'd anticipated either. And she's got everything stacked against her. She's absolutely gorgeous, a kind of living Barbie doll with giant-sized lips and cool blue eyes that belong in the Guiness Book of World Records. And she sings too (in French) as part of her beauty contest routine and she flounces around in the most flowery and feminine dresses designable. She's compelled to look frightened and do some weeping. It all ought to fall flat but it doesn't. She may or may not have much range -- it's difficult to tell- but what skills she has work for her here. The rest of the characters don't have much to do. The heartbroken family is a generic heartbroken family. The only other outstanding part, and again there isn't much screen time available, is that of the murderer, played by a guy named -- get this -- Butch Slade. He plays an overweight and unattractive man whose face seems to be all long unkempt black beard and no frontal lobes. Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? He's as nutty as a fruitcake but he loves Jen Ryan desperately, even though his idea of "love" may be a little different from yours and mine. (It involves giving the girl a choice of shooting, overdosing, or strangulation.) He's great in the role of the madman. When he first appears in court, chained, manacled, hobbled, the first thing he does is smile at Jen Ryan, call out her name, and stumble towards her as if to embrace her. His attraction towards her is understandable. After all, that's what "Miss South Carolina" contests are all about, isn't it?
The writers seem to have had a bit of a tough job filling the time slot. There are woeful lapses into cliche. Ryan, more beautiful than smart, under threat of kidnap and miserable death, nevertheless visits her deserted high school alone, is threatened by mysterious shadows and suspicious figures, and winds up in one of those scenes where the poor girl runs screaming down empty hallways and clanging against doors locked with thirty-pound chains. See the original "Cape Fear" for a better example of this device.
One of the reasons the writers may have had trouble is that after the initial kidnapping, nothing much exciting happens. The killer makes nine phone calls to Ryan but the police fail every time in their attempts to catch him. When the penny does finally drop, they get him pronto and there is time only for five minutes in the courtroom before we cut to Jen Ryan in her church, giving the congregation a speech about her dead sister meant to be spiritually uplifting but which I can't interpret as carrying any message other than, "**** happens," before she begins to sing "Amazing Grace," a hymn so pleasant that I wish it weren't so overused.
Well I don't mean this to sound too nasty. It gets the job done and perhaps a bit more. I don't know what happened to Butch Slade's character. I can understand why a lot of people would want him executed but he'd serve humanity better if he lived a long life under constant psychiatric study.