Troubled Waters (2006) User Reviews (8)

Psychic detective

[Jim Tritten · 4/10 · 12 November 2007]

A mediocre movie at best. The plot has promise – kidnapping, adultery, and a psychic FBI agent – but something falls apart in the execution of the concept for a film into an actual theatrical event. Must be the screen writing. The story drags at times and it seems like an eternity before the heroes can figure out what the viewer has already determined as obvious. And that is with the aid of a psychic detective – the scenes where she senses what has occurred are interesting but do not result in moving the storyline forward by leaps and bounds. But then the summing up at the end dumps a whole lot of facts on the viewer that seems to come from nowhere. Then too there is the parallel plot of medical problems with the heroine that remains unresolved at the end.

Let's review what is good about the movie. Shauna Black is certainly nice to look at but one can only wish that Laura Vandervoort would have had a larger part. The "ending" that opens the movie is revealed to be an incomplete truth about three quarters the way through and the real ending could have been a real show stopper. Jennifer Beals does yeoman's work with the material she has been handed – she deserves better. Finally the movie yields the best-dressed software company secretary in many years.

Not much to recommend here.

Wooden Auras

[compugor · 5/10 · 15 March 2019]

Jennifer Beals carries this movie through to acceptability, but everyone, including the character Beals portrays, has a wooden aura about them in this low budget mystery about a bunch of depraved, rich stiffs investigated by glum FBI stiffs. This movie may take the record for the having the most unlikable characters. Beals as well as her character manage to pull it off without much support. The far-fetched but still satisfying ending makes suffering through the clunky build-up barely worth it.

a bit thrilling, but terrible acting

[sheymabuali · 4/10 · 17 January 2007]

A little girl was taken from her room. The kidnapping has revealed a few other secrets about this model family. The mother's elicit affair, some mysteriously missing characters from their past, and a family friend who seems too close for comfort. I found this movie very poorly acted; this was accentuated by the poor dialog. The film also had quite a few scattered subplots and characters. Special Agent Beck, who was leading the FBI in solving the case was involved in an accident that gave her second sight. This 'ability' did not add anything to the plot - it would've made it more exciting if they had actually figured things out naturally, as Agents do. To me, it was just a weak way of solving a mystery. There also were some character who didn't add anything to the direction of the movie. They weren't antagonist, nor did they really help any of the situations. Despite all this, I had to watch the film till the end. Perhaps Im just a sucker for cheap thrillers, but in either case, it was an easy and forgettable guilty pleasure.

No attractive detective works

[Claudia-Jean · 4/10 · 28 November 2020]

In general, viewers enjoy watching police movies when they are synchronized with the police's struggles and fine deductions. However, Agent Beck's psychics represents all answers out of the blue, with no significant police works made. I felt like I was skimming a mystery book from the back. You will see a twist in the last 10 minutes, but it was cheesy and frustrating with little content related with the entire story. In short, a terrible unstructured script.

Lifetime Movie. Nuff Said.

[evmcelroy · 4/10 · 5 May 2018]

I watched this via Amazon Prime and within 15 minutes was saying to myself, "This seems like a Lifetime movie." Well, doh, of course that's exactly what it is - lousy plot, mediocre writing and barely adequate acting. Why are these Canadian productions frequently so blah? Since The L Word, has Jennifer Beales had any role that suited her? She deserves better.

the waters were troubled, all right

[blanche-2 · 4/10 · 15 December 2013]

...with bad acting, a bad script, a bad pace, and an awful movie.

Jennifer Beals, whom I have always liked, stars in Troubled Waters, a Canadian production. Beals plays Jennifer Beck, a police detective who says her lines like someone on Dragnet. She was involved in a shooting and still has bullet fragments in her head which give her headaches. Apparently the shooting also made her psychic, something she hides from her fellow officers.

When a little girl goes missing from her room, Beck and her partner, Andy (Jonathan Goad) a man with one of the thickest Canadian accents you'll ever hear, go to investigate. I want to say that despite the red herrings, I had this thing figured out in the first minute. And that's not because I'm a genius.

Beck starts getting all kinds of psychic visions, but frankly, I don't know what plot line was doing in there because it really didn't help he case all that much. Beck suspects adultery, and she has a villain for the kidnapping in mind. What she doesn't realize is that there is another crime that was supposed to be committed, and the kidnapping and the other crime are confounding the investigation and who the suspects are.

At one hour and 45 minutes, this movie felt longer than Gone with the Wind and Howard's End combined. The dialog was awful. The initial scene between the husband and wife was one of those "I know we've been having a hard time because I've been busy but I'm going to make it up to you" scenes that I've seen 50,000 times - in each case done better. Totally by the numbers. Jennifer Beals was required to say "I'm fine" about 100 times during the film as she grabbed for aspirin to take care of her headache that she said she didn't have. As Beck, she exhibited no personality trait except a quiet surliness throughout. Sharon Lewis played another detective who was constantly telling Beck's partner how Beck is a bad detective. There was no reason for this character, and her acting was abominable.

The denouement was no surprise to me at all. Structured better, directed with more pace, stronger acting, and someone redoing of the script, as derivative as "Troubled Waters" is, it still could have been very good. Instead, it was lousy.

One final thing. When the girl's father went to New York for a conference, by the way, it looked as much like New York as Alma, Nebraska does.

Great twists and even greater ending!

[Topaz1922 · 8/10 · 11 November 2012]

I started to not watch this movie based on the reviews but decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. Although the movie starts slow in the beginning it increasingly peaks your interest once the actually investigation begins. It has all the basic twists and turns as seen in thrillers and suspense movies. At first, it looks like a lower budgeted movie but once the dynamics of the characters come out, the movie is quite interested and keeps you on the edge of your seat playing detective yourself, and coming up with scenarios.

At first you wonder what the truth is behind the headaches of Jennifer Beals' character, then you are pleasantly surprised that she is not crazy but reluctantly to put her truth out there possible due to being judged and mocked. It's obvious throughout the movie, that although she is not well liked by her peers and is obviously and outcast, she does yield results in her cases (due to having an upper-hand). Awesome ending!!

Beals' Character Beck is a Bridge Over Troubled Waters

[lavatch · 8/10 · 30 November 2018]

In this well-paced thriller, Jennifer Beals shines as the quick-thinking FBI agent who uses unorthodox methods to solve crimes. Beals' SA Jennifer Beck is the centerpiece of a film with a clever design and a solid set of performances.

SA Beck had a traumatic experience when she was wounded during a stake-out. The result was neurological damage that has led her to become a psychic. Beck puts her talents to good use in a kidnapping case with a paper trail leading to a Silcon Valley tech company that is getting off the ground and will soon be worth millions.

There is a strange triangulated relationship between the two male partners. One is single and the other is married with a lovely daughter. After the daughter is kidnapped, Beck senses that all three characters may be lying.

There was one place where the plotting became strained with an apparent hitman paid to kill one of the business executives. That strand of the narrative was never resolved.

Still, the film is worth seeing for Beals' complex portrait of a dedicated FBI agent. This G-Woman will let nothing stand in her way of getting to the bottom of things for what is for one of the characters the "perfect crime." But the perp never counted on the special skills of Special Agent Beck.