barrymalvina

I cannot agree that this film should be categorized as an action (the only convincing bit of action is a car chase where the mother and her daughter are being tail-gated by a low-life car-jacker), and certainly not a comedy! As a standard LMN movie, I guess it could be categorized as a crime drama, or possibly a suspense. LMN suspenses for me, however, have little suspenseful impact as they are mostly so much of a muchness. Twists in the endings, or in the story-line, as with this one, give them some entertainment value.

If there was a separate scale for LMN movies, I would give this one a rating of seven for its entertainment value, but since that is not possible here I can only give it a rating of three.

There are numerous holes in the plot, but I will not describe them here as I do not want to have to issue a spoiler warning. I will, however, comment on the car chase. I do wonder, in reality, is the best action to drive at high speed to try to lose the tail-gater? Is it a good idea to swerve off onto a lonely country road? I do not know, I have never been tail-gated by a maniac with a gun. The sensible thing to me would be to continue to drive at a steady speed, keeping in high-density traffic, and only pulling up in an area highly populated with pedestrians, and/or a police station or near a police car. But then I am not trying to make a movie.

My wife and myself have just watched this film on TCM. We are both in our seventies, and agree nearly completely with the criticisms made of it here in the user reviews, which we usually read after we have watched a film. Interestingly, reading these reviews in chronological order, it seems that the ones over the last few years are nearly all favorable, which says much about present day morals and understanding of mature adult relationships, we think.

One reviewer says that he gives the film a zero, but his wife gives it ten, and we suspect that reviews which are favorable are mostly from women.

Francesca never matured emotionally. Her teenage longing for excitement and romance may well have been totally repressed, even to a state of not consciously recognizing her condition, but we do not think this excuses her from her infidelity. Her after-death confessions to her children were wicked, and they should not have granted her wish to have her ashes scattered off the bridge. Respecting their father, they should have had her buried in the plot reserved for her, where they could both then attend the graves of their parents, if they so wished.

As has been pointed out many times in these reviews, Robert was a deceitful womanizer and a loner, and Francesca had no assurance that he would be faithful to her if she had run away with him. The only thing which held these two pathetic creatures together was lust, not love.

Sadly lacking in the film was any real indication of the relationship between Francesca and her husband. At the beginning of their relationship, there must have been romance and excitement for both of them in war-torn Italy. They probably got married in Italy, and she would look forward to further excitement in the land of opportunity, not realizing that he was really only a quiet country boy who just wanted to get back to his ancestral farm and work it until his dying day. He was perceptive, as on his death-bed he seemed to know that he had not been a totally fulfilling husband.

We give this film a rating of two, because it has stimulated thought and conversation, but to class it as a romance is absurd.

Having agreed with all of the criticisms of this film in these reviews, I am motivated to write something myself, because of the seriousness of one of the points below. To itemize some of the complaints so far:

1. This is a typical Lifetime movie, but I found it on one of the so- called "better" movie channels. Was I disappointed.

2. The two women closest to the action (mum and girlfriend) are unbelievably stupid in not seeing the danger, but continue to suggest there is no problem. If they had got killed themselves I would have had little sympathy for them.

3. When the baddie is hit once and he is down, the victims never hit again and turn their backs on him, allowing the perp to get up again and continue his mayhem. This happens far too many times in Lifetime movies.

4. There is no way the killer should get away at the end of the film, he should have been mangled to a pulp to give us all some satisfaction. Surely they do not think they are going to make a sequel!!?

5. Very seriously, to use America's Most Wanted in this plot is sacrilege. AMW always insist anyone concerned should notify them, completely anonymously, and this should have been done in this film, or not use AMW at all. I would like to hear that AMW have complained.

Unless, of course, AMW want to use this film as an indication of what might happen if someone does not report their suspicions.

I do not mind watching crap movies if I have the time, but I do not want to be insulted. Take this film off the circuit, AMW!

I did not like this film. I enjoyed it on the basis of a nonsense fiction (a bit like I enjoyed reading The Da Vinci Code for entertainment only), but there are certain implications in it to which I strongly object.

To begin, there cannot exist a Spanish speaking Caribbean island, apparently so small yet having solidly built streets and alleys in its main town and villages. Apparently it was filmed in Puerto Rico, say no more.

I cannot abide US Americans who scream and shout as if their voice is their authority. I well remember my father in the UK saying that after meeting US soldiers during WW2 he did not like them because they have "the gift of the gab".

It is strongly suggested that voodoo, witchcraft and religious cultism are highly prevalent only in the Caribbean, and that ordinary people are highly susceptible to their influence.

Finally, it appears that the film was made primarily to appeal to those who would contend that shouting and voodoo are forces to believe in, and use for good or bad. I trust others would be put off by this in this film, as I was.

Its one redeeming feature, I thought, was its story line, implying corruption at high levels, and motivated by long-standing family ties in a local community, and long-standing aspects of revenge towards badly-behaved American tourists. I will give the film two stars for this.

Apart from the scenery, I found this film a waste of time, having just watched it on a TV movie channel. Thank goodness there was probably nothing better on our other available channels. For me, there really should have been far more views of this beautiful Hawaiian island, to alleviate the boredom of the first three-quarters of the film. The last quarter was mostly gratuitous violence, quite out-of-keeping with the idyllic setting (I suppose that was intended but it left me further bored), leading to a couple of twists in the story which could have been entertaining except that I was already switched off the whole film.

I say two twists, one of which was completely understandable if not predictable (the revealing of the identity of the main killer), and for me the second was the turn-about of the killer's partner. I guess it's me, but I really did not understand why the killer's partner should reveal him to the police, thus permitting them to shoot him. It was certainly out-of-character after seeing her in the fight scenes. Unless of course it was intended that she was hoping to be exonerated of any compliance, which would not have worked because the two surviving witnesses would not have backed her up.

This was not revealed by the story, as it abruptly ended there. I hate an incomplete ending in this sort of two-bit movie, I think the writers could at least tidy up the loose ends to give us some sort of satisfaction after having sat through, what I consider to be, a load of tripe. They do this in most of the Lifetime movies which are particularly two-bit (second-rate, "B" type), usually ending in a fight between the two female antagonists. In these fights, why does the heroine always depart from a semi-unconscious opponent, only for the baddie to get up and try to scare us again. This really is kids' stuff. It happened in this film too, our heroine had the chance to clobber the killer with a rock and send him to his death at the bottom of the cliff. All she did was to pin his hand to the top of the cliff with a knife, then run off, leaving him to use his pinned hand to help him climb over the top! What rubbish, especially for a supposedly rated movie, not a Lifetime regular.

Straight away I must say I agree with most comments in the "I hated this movie" category. However, I am writing this review to point out what I think might have been some redeeming features of it until they were totally spoiled by the fantasy elements and the ridiculous ending.

Both my wife and myself were first attracted to it as it was classed as a drama on its TV showing (totally wrong, it should have been a fantasy/horror - there were certainly no thrills in it for us, we do sometimes quite like a good thriller - and then we wouldn't have bothered at all). We also thought the plot sounded plausible - a wealthy western couple losing their son in a tsunami, and then the seriously disturbed mother persuading dad to go with her look for him.

On watching the film, we thought it went well along these lines, with the boy apparently being spotted on a video of children playing on a river bank, with one of them wearing a red shirt - possible the Manchester United shirt their son was wearing when he was washed away. This video was seen in a screening amongst wealthy patrons of charities organizing relief for the tsunami victims, also very plausible.

So off they go, with some very good shots of the scenery and local means of transport, etc. Unfortunately much of it was at night-time, so we saw little of it. Why do film makers do this, or is it the reproduction on a TV screen? Anyway, that was the first put-off for us. Another put-off was the interminable length of many scenes, where nothing else happened (e.g. when the husband rescues his wife from the sea and they were splashing around in the water for far too long) and we were trying to be patient whilst waiting for the scene to change.

As events unfolded, and I will not say more to avoid further possible spoilers, the only other redeeming quality for us was the chance that they might find their son, and we watched it through to the end with this hope in mind.

I must add one major criticism of the use of the children in the film, on top of everything that has been said in other reviews. Were the film- makers trying to emulate "Lord of the Flies"? I can understand how boys of rich parents in an English prep school can turn into little savages, but the local children in such a disaster, having lost their parents, would not gang up in the forest like this. I think it was very degrading of the people who live in these areas to suggest they would.

Googling child abandonment in Burma does not change my view of this film. This child abandonment is due entirely to the military, of which there is no mention. If there had been, and cut out the fantasy, then it would have been far more successful as a drama, albeit fictional.

My wife and myself enjoy dramas based on real events, and we do not mind too much if they are not accurately factual, as we always do a search on the Internet afterward. Our search on this occasion confirmed our misgivings we felt during our viewing.

We had no knowledge whatsoever beforehand of this case and of the suffering of this family, and our comments will only be based on the film as we watched it. I had some knowledge of the many kidnappings occurring in Mexico, and the corruption, therefore understood a little of the reluctance of the authorities in this film to give them the support they deserved.

To begin, we could not understand why it was that it was the husband who was kidnapped, rather than the wife or one of the children. We could not really understand why he was beaten and tortured, in spite of the calm explanations given by the wife's supposedly secret government adviser. We could not understand why this adviser did little else, apart from play with the children. We could not understand why the husband should hold an account only in his name and which the wife knew about, but she could not access those funds. We do not recall ever being told what sort of occupation the husband held, sufficient to run a 1000 acre ranch, and how they came to possess other real estate which was on the market for 8 million dollars! Finally, when the husband was released, we felt that the film had done nothing to give us answers to these questions.

The blurb at the end explained that they were again a happy family, (it is not surprising they were happy having sold their ranch for probably no small sum, we guessed) and would never return to Mexico, and that the kidnappers have still not been apprehended.

If this film was intended only to invoke sympathy and support for the awful experience which they suffered, then it would succeed with those who might not ask these questions. For us, at least it gave us the incentive to do a search, and now we feel we have some answers, but we are keeping them to ourselves.

We give it six because it got us thinking.

I have read the first page of the above reviews, and cannot find fault with anything contained therein. This movie is an emotional experience making us all think about life, death and and our own personal views of these things. I guess it must work 100% for anyone who is only a moviegoer and likes this sort of thing. However, to really appreciate the deeper messages in the film, I think one would need to be a little familiar with Lewis's whole life and his writings. Perhaps in this respect I was expecting too much of a mere movie. The inaccuracies were also a little disconcerting, for instance Joy only appears to have one son, but I do understand this was done for dramatic effect, rather than a "goof"! I guess this film can be described as a biopic. It should certainly never be presented as a biography, and I trust it never has been, or will be in the future. Film-makers have the funds to make a biography which should be accurate in historical and geographical detail. It can also be controversial, which this film is not and was never intended to be. In other words, even in this highly dramatised account of Lewis's love life, I would have liked to have seen some reference to his sexual experiences before meeting Joy, and I would have liked to have had a little more information given on Joy's motives for writing to Lewis and ultimately visiting him. I think in real life, Joy was already aware of her cancer before she even travelled to England the first time, because it was very far advanced when it was finally diagnosed. To meet a very well-established Englishman, to be able to settle with her son(s) permanently in the UK, seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing for her to have planned. I wonder if C. S. Lewis ever thought of that possibility before he died? An excellent film, and recommended even for anyone more interested in the really true lives of famous people.