POINT OF ENTRY (TV Movie 2007)
BASIC PLOT: The Alden family has recently moved to the exclusive, gated community of Hidden Glade. It is a high security neighborhood, with limited access. The move was triggered after Katherine (Holly Marie Combs) suffered a violent attack during a brutal home invasion. Her husband, Richard (Roark Critchlow), was out of town when the attack occurred, and his family has not felt safe since. They are trying to rebuild their lives, but problems persist. Katherine, and their son Sam (Max Burkholder), who heard his mother's assault, are still fragile. Richard wants to help his family, but is often exasperated at their lack of progress.
Their new neighbor, Caleb Theroux (Patrick Muldoon) has become the family's confidante. Caleb has even hired Katherine to restore one of his antiques. He's kind, and maybe a bit too ingratiating. Caleb's an illustrator of children's books, but he mainly lives on family money. Unbeknownst to everyone, Caleb is being investigated by a retired detective. Miles Porter (Richard Roundtree) was investigating his goddaughter's murder, when the case went cold. He retired to work on it full time, and he's finally caught a break. One of Caleb's books was found at the murder scene, and Porter finally tracked down the publisher, Mrs. Aldenger (Rende Rae Norman). He discovered the book was published under a pen name, and had been pulled from publication. The author was a suspect in his wife's murder, and later disappeared. Detective Porter has put his own life on hold to pursue this case, but will it be enough to find the killer?
WHAT WORKS: *Men lie. They lie when they need to, they lie when they don't, they can't help themselves. Richard lies to Katherine about working with Susan (Jennifer Gareis), an old girlfriend. If he'd told Katherine the truth, he was going on a business trip with Susan, she wouldn't have assumed he was cheating. Lying implied the worst about Richard, and made his family more vulnerable to the psycho in their midst. It's a believable plot point, that works.
*There are a lot of quality actors in this film, almost all of them wasted. They do a fine job of portraying what the script asks of them, but with a few tweaks here and there, it could have been so much better.
WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *Katherine stops trusting Caleb without cause. Characters need motivations, and there is no reason for Katherine to suddenly be fearful of Caleb. He went from being a trusted neighbor, and customer, to someone to be viewed with suspicion, and incredulity. No explanation of Katherine's sudden distrust is ever given. Why the change in her feelings about Caleb? Because he often works late into the night? Because Richard is suddenly jealous of Caleb? Those aren't reasons to shift your view of someone so perspicuously.
*If Richard is so jealous of Caleb, why does he agree to stay with him when Katherine kicks him out?
*Traci Lords plays Brianna Fine, an ineffectual character, with no point at all. She does a fine job with what she is given, but the character is an after thought, and goes nowhere. It's almost like they added the character just to have Traci Lords on the cast. I could say the same thing about the addition of Charlene Tilton.
*Richard Roundtree is completely wasted here. If you edited his character out, you'd have the same movie. He's added filler, maybe to pass the time, maybe so they could put him on the credits. It's too bad, because his character had potential, and could have added something special.
*The causes of Caleb's psychosis are never explored, and this leaves lots of unanswered questions. There's never any explanation as to why he killed his wife, what happened to his mother, no backstory at all. This makes the killer less believable, and the movie less enjoyable. A few sentences when Katherine and Caleb are eating Thai food, would have cleared this up. It also would have given Katherine the motivation she needs to become suspicious of Caleb. The script needed tweaking and unfortunately, it didn't get it.
TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *If you like made-for-tv thrillers, you'll probably like this. It has it's problems, but you could do a lot worse.
CLOSING NOTES: *This is a Made-For-TV movie, please keep that in mind before you watch\rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.
*I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews. Hope I helped you out.
BASIC PLOT: The Alden family has recently moved to the exclusive, gated community of Hidden Glade. It is a high security neighborhood, with limited access. The move was triggered after Katherine (Holly Marie Combs) suffered a violent attack during a brutal home invasion. Her husband, Richard (Roark Critchlow), was out of town when the attack occurred, and his family has not felt safe since. They are trying to rebuild their lives, but problems persist. Katherine, and their son Sam (Max Burkholder), who heard his mother's assault, are still fragile. Richard wants to help his family, but is often exasperated at their lack of progress.
Their new neighbor, Caleb Theroux (Patrick Muldoon) has become the family's confidante. Caleb has even hired Katherine to restore one of his antiques. He's kind, and maybe a bit too ingratiating. Caleb's an illustrator of children's books, but he mainly lives on family money. Unbeknownst to everyone, Caleb is being investigated by a retired detective. Miles Porter (Richard Roundtree) was investigating his goddaughter's murder, when the case went cold. He retired to work on it full time, and he's finally caught a break. One of Caleb's books was found at the murder scene, and Porter finally tracked down the publisher, Mrs. Aldenger (Rende Rae Norman). He discovered the book was published under a pen name, and had been pulled from publication. The author was a suspect in his wife's murder, and later disappeared. Detective Porter has put his own life on hold to pursue this case, but will it be enough to find the killer?
WHAT WORKS: *Men lie. They lie when they need to, they lie when they don't, they can't help themselves. Richard lies to Katherine about working with Susan (Jennifer Gareis), an old girlfriend. If he'd told Katherine the truth, he was going on a business trip with Susan, she wouldn't have assumed he was cheating. Lying implied the worst about Richard, and made his family more vulnerable to the psycho in their midst. It's a believable plot point, that works.
*There are a lot of quality actors in this film, almost all of them wasted. They do a fine job of portraying what the script asks of them, but with a few tweaks here and there, it could have been so much better.
WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *Katherine stops trusting Caleb without cause. Characters need motivations, and there is no reason for Katherine to suddenly be fearful of Caleb. He went from being a trusted neighbor, and customer, to someone to be viewed with suspicion, and incredulity. No explanation of Katherine's sudden distrust is ever given. Why the change in her feelings about Caleb? Because he often works late into the night? Because Richard is suddenly jealous of Caleb? Those aren't reasons to shift your view of someone so perspicuously.
*If Richard is so jealous of Caleb, why does he agree to stay with him when Katherine kicks him out?
*Traci Lords plays Brianna Fine, an ineffectual character, with no point at all. She does a fine job with what she is given, but the character is an after thought, and goes nowhere. It's almost like they added the character just to have Traci Lords on the cast. I could say the same thing about the addition of Charlene Tilton.
*Richard Roundtree is completely wasted here. If you edited his character out, you'd have the same movie. He's added filler, maybe to pass the time, maybe so they could put him on the credits. It's too bad, because his character had potential, and could have added something special.
*The causes of Caleb's psychosis are never explored, and this leaves lots of unanswered questions. There's never any explanation as to why he killed his wife, what happened to his mother, no backstory at all. This makes the killer less believable, and the movie less enjoyable. A few sentences when Katherine and Caleb are eating Thai food, would have cleared this up. It also would have given Katherine the motivation she needs to become suspicious of Caleb. The script needed tweaking and unfortunately, it didn't get it.
TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *If you like made-for-tv thrillers, you'll probably like this. It has it's problems, but you could do a lot worse.
CLOSING NOTES: *This is a Made-For-TV movie, please keep that in mind before you watch\rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.
*I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews. Hope I helped you out.