Watched for Jodelle Ferland, of course; and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so like a sucker for watching a movie for such a reason, lol. Jodelle is in this I think frame for frame even less than she was in The Messengers. I guess at least she’s a girl in this one? (still playing the glad game from Pollyanna I guess LOL)

It’s just a really generic TV movie and not worth talking about much at all. It doesn’t even end well, it just kinda stops, lol. Not worth keeping or seeing again even for Jodelle.

As the opening credits roll here, you find yourself wondering just why this barely slipped out straight to DVD. Directed by Jon Avnet, Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Deborah Kara Unger, Leelee Sobieski, William Forsythe, Amy Brenneman … I only needed the names of Pacino and Witt earlier this year to make me think, “Oh dear … just how bad can this be?”

The answer is … not bad at all. I found this to be a near-perfect thriller, with aspects of the real-time Johnny Depp movie Nick of Time but also a neat questioning of the value of forensic evidence akin to the commentary on the death penalty in The Life of David Gale. There’s a line from Pacino, “Truth and justice – where do the two intersect?” which could apply to the revenge movies I’ve watched in the past couple of days. Witt and Pacino are fantastic, as are the supporting cast – Sobieski quite relishes her role in particular, and what else can I say? It kept me gripped.

What a double treat this and Twisted Nerve have been This again bears a (very Vertigo-ish) Bernard Herrmann score (made even harder not to make the comparison by the waves crashing over the opening credits) and it’s from an Agatha Christie source, the next best thing in the thriller genre to Hitchcock. I’ve been planning on seeing this ever since I got it, of course, for Hayley Mills, but holding off because I’m not great with Agatha Christie stuff (funnily enough the first IMDb comment I came across said “not so great if you’re an Agatha Christie fan”). This isn’t Poirot or Miss Marple or anything, though, it’s a very self-contained stripped down story that surely must’ve passed through the hands of Hitch at some point – like Twisted Nerve, it would’ve been wonderful with him in charge, but even without him it holds some interest.

Hywel Bennett stars with Mills again (the second of a triple these past few days) and they’re a great pairing. I cringed the moment Mills’ character announced herself as American, but I have to say, I almost want to take back all I’ve said against Hayley and her accents, ‘cos the one she uses here isn’t half bad. She’s ludicrously beautiful again as she was in Twisted Nerve ... between the two I honestly feel like I’m falling in love with her all over again. Add the shots of the Vespa and the mini and the hard to believe moment where Mills says she’s never tried a muffin, lol, and this is certainly one I’ll watch again.