Richiecass

Could anything be more pathetic than ripping off an acclaimed Kurt Russell movie, Breakdown, because Lifetime has no screenwriting capabilities? No original ideas other than formulaic drivel? I really was stunned at the extent, blow by blow, of the copycatting of that film, which I have seen numerous times and highly recommend. The only significant difference is the man is abducted instead of the woman, and there are "updates" in the form of electric car vs Jeep and wi-fi money transfer instead of physically being forced to take out cash from a bank. The score at 5.1 is too high for such a rip-off, clearly an indication the raters have not seen the original.

The problem here is obvious from the outset. Her husband was a disordered person; no one who behaves like that is a healthy guy in other ways, and as such there would be red flags. Which she was clueless about; could not muster empathy for her when she was that oblivious. But watching this throughout it was obvious his wife had no understanding of cluster B men, whirlwind romances, love bombing, infidelity etc. These types are all the same. But she had no concept of this and worse learned nothing throughout the entire ordeal, for example thinking it's her fault: it never is. But she would know that if she googled narcissistic male partner. Difficult to care about her when she didn't educate herself; but that's why he married her. Ignorance in a partner is very useful to his type. The documentary was mostly asking the viewer to feel sorry for her but that's not possible. Ignorance is a choice in the 21st century.

For starters this is what you might call a "B" movie meaning production values aren't that great. And yet: it's quite an engrossing thriller with an interesting ending. This irrational negativity in "reviews" on this platform reduces its credibility to nothingness. Enjoy this interesting thriller with a satisfying ending. I really hope people don't put much value in imdb ratings; for once I didn't look at them and watched this, skeptical because of the production quality, and fully enjoyed it. Definitely found myself guessing and initially figured the film was going to be about the woman being set up and finding the "real killer." Was surprising when it was not that. Give it a shot.

I watched this not knowing anything of the real story and was genuinely surprised at the end on seeing the statement that he was convicted of rape and kidnapping. The film goes out of its way to avoid even the tiniest hint of sexual assault leaving the viewer with the impression she was abducted violently for platonic friendship; cooking together, playing chess. It's not necessary to go into explicit detail to be clear about the reality of the ordeal, especially perplexing when other Lifetime films have no problem depicting sex. It really misleads the viewer and one wonders who exactly the target audience was.

The main highlights here are the excellent cast who all are stellar in their parts; particularly Robert Patrick. If you are a suspense fan you will appreciate the building up of tension done very well here; later things slide and are wrapped up rather quickly and predictably. Enjoy it for the cast, tension and acting. Nice soundtrack also enhancing the suspense and experience.

The story and plot are quite workable as a thriller drama. Production value is low in this obviously low budget indie so I think it's become underrated because of that. If you just watch it and go with it, ignore the low production values, it keeps you hooked throughout, even a few twists. I enjoyed it.

Like many of these Lifetime thrillers, the stage is set early and the characters who are the significant players are introduced early; it was unfortunately pretty obvious what was what far too early. In other words, no surprises and turned out as expected.

Just finished the series and it's a horrifying true tale of serial murder, conning, manipulation, theft and other sordid behavior; in short an excellent portrayal of a full fledged psychopath and his duped enablers. The production is exquisitely authentic with great attention to detail of the 70s times and great cinematography. It's a potent story that needed telling.

The reduction in points from a 10 comes from the style choice of storytelling. There's nothing about this story that couldn't have been condensed into a highly impactful film of 2-2.5 hours or a shorter, tighter miniseries. As such the key components of the story are relatively short interspersed with drawn out, redundant segments emphasizing the situation of the characters. For example the relentless determination of Knippenberg, his frustrations and decaying marriage is important but took up a big chunk of time, repeatedly.

Similarly, the nonlinear narrative was not necessary and makes one have to concentrate and focus over 8 hours more than should be required to follow this story, even given several characters and different countries. Other reviewers have defended this and blamed the IQ of the viewer as the problem. Really? It's ok to criticize film making choices and not be of limited intellect. Anyway we are in an era where lengthy series are a thing whether they need to be or not; I would have preferred this powerful gripping story be told in a more compacted, potent form with a linear narrative.

While casting, locations, cinematography are great, the overwhelming majority of the film is the backstory, how he met her, fell for her, their relationship, marriage etc, considering this is a true crime story about two brutal homicides. The actual investigation and how she was tripped up is super fascinating, and was woefully neglected here, a true disservice to the entire story. Essentially it was completely left out and the homicides and aftermath occupy the last few minutes of the film. For example, detectives were able to analyze her key card to the hotel and find out she was lying about not being in the room when she was during the homicide; it was quite fascinating. Truly a wasted opportunity to bring the story to life, apart from the glamorousness of Paz Vega and the otherwise enjoyable story.

Great fun revisiting the characters and story of the original, and even though this one has its shortcomings, it's funny enough to make up for them. One particularly fun throwback was the character of Mr. Duke in the job interview; a nod to the Dukes of Trading Places (I suspect wrongly interpreted as "wokeness" by so many of these reviewers.) You would need to see that film to get it; both that and Coming to America original were directed by John Landis and the latter contains references to the former. It's important to be familiar with these two earlier movies before writing reviews.