Web of Deceit (1990 TV Movie) User Reviews

A Great Television Underrated Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 18 February 2004]

Lauren Hale (Linda Purl) is a successful attorney in San Francisco. She comes back to Atlanta, where her mother belongs to the high-society, to defend Andy Sorva (Paul de Souza), a simple mechanic accused of rape and murder. She interviews Andy, and he tells her that he was going to a client's home to fix the starting engine of a car and decided to stop first in a bar for having dinner. There, he met the victim, the hitchhiker Mary Ellen Resse (Amy Bryson). She was travelling along USA and had no money for food. Andy bought some food for her and invited her to go to his client's mansion with him. There, they used some cocaine, he fainted and have not seen the girl anymore. He said that he would never need to rape the girl, since they had a `romance' before arriving in the mansion. Lauren decides to visit the prosecutor and she finds that he is her former boy friend Paul Evanston (James Read). He makes an offer to her to reduce Andy's sentence, but Andy does not accept it. Lauren and Paul are divorced and start dating while Lauren investigates deeper and deeper the case. The disgusting and dirty truth is only revealed in the last scene of this film. Yesterday I watched this movie, maybe for the fourth time. It is one of the best television movies I have ever seen. The story begins with a simple case of rape and murder, having a simple and poor guy accused. The perseverance of Linda Purl's character is fantastic, investigating wealthy persons without any fear. The excellent screenplay is very well tied-up, and the plot is disclosed to the viewer very slowly. The direction and performance of the cast is also very good. I like this politically correct movie a lot, where justice and ethic prevails no matter the price, and I do recommend it for all audiences. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Teia de Mentiras' (`Web of Lies')

A very tangled web, at that.

[rmax304823 · 8 December 2004]

SPOILERS.

A not too badly done courtroom drama about a society murder case, with an offstage romance between Linda Purl as the defense attorney and Steve Read as the prosecutor.

The level of everything, from the performances to the art direction, is professional, about at the level of an average TV movie, maybe a bit more.

Read comes across as handsome, caring, divorced, and successful -- every woman's fantasy. He's even from the wrong side of Atlanta's social tracks, which only adds to his allure. Linda Purl is an underrated actress, I think. She has never had the kind of bravura role that would shoot out the lights, never played an amputee or a schizophrenic. Her roles have been pretty much whitebread, although her background is rather more interesting than that. (The Japanese theater and whatnot.) Barbara Rush too gives a decent performance, Smithfield smoked ham, her voice dripping with honey and hemlock. She passes a critical test -- how to play a social snob without turning the character into a mean bitch.

The story centers on a murder that some young sloppy guy may or may not have committed. Purl finds herself facing Read, who has become her new boyfriend, across the aisle in the courtroom. They fall in love, I guess, since they "see the sunrise" together at Read's pad.

But, as Sir Walter Scott observed, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." Frankly the plot lost me at one or two point. I was confused by the cars and the tracking of their owners but I did manage to get the general drift of the evidence.

The story turns out to be less plausible than I'd hoped -- a fake thief tries to off Purl when he was only supposed to "scare" her -- and the ending torpedoes what has gone before. Purl discovers in the course of her investigation that Read was present at the murder scene, and he confesses to everything in the judge's chambers (is that what his office is called?). A court recorder takes the whole rambling tale down as he spills the beans. Straight out of Perry Mason. I can't imagine the perp breaking down at the climax of very many trials.

Interesting observations on the social order of a caste-ridden city, now undergoing lots of change.

the spiders of Atlanta

[petershelleyau · 7 January 2003]

Linda Purl is Lauren Hale, a San Francisco attorney who returns to her home in Atlanta, Georgia to defend Andy Sorva (Paul de Souza) on the charge of rape and murder of Mary Ellen Reese (Amy Bryson), a teenage hitchhiker who is killed on the Troxel estate during a party.

In spite of her mother Judith (Barbara Rush) being a socialite, Lauren is shown not to belong, wearing an unflattering backless black evening gown at one party and a less formal faux-peasant outfit at another. Purl's performance is affected by her southern accent, her energy enervated, though she can still carry off the theatrics of the trial. She is given a sensuous closeup kissing her girlhood sweetheart who is also the State prosecutor, Paul Evanston (James Read), and does a hard swallow reaction to the idea of Paul being involved in the murder. When she has a realisation about Paul, Purl slows her questions to his doctor as a witness, conscious of the implication, but a later slap of the face by her is unnecessary.

The teleplay by director Sandor Stern presents class division amongst the wealthy of east Atlanta. Andy is said to have come `from the sticks'. Paul is equated with Andy, because Paul is less wealthy which explains his use of "contaminated cocaine', and his association with the richer to succeed. Judith says of Paul `He came from nothing and he has nothing', which Lauren counters with `By your standards, only'. Mary Ellen too is judged, described by Paul as `a tart who's had more hands on her than a pay phone', though one also questions the recklessness of someone who strips naked under a garden sprinkler thinking they will not be noticed. Andy's guilt is undermined by his being so unattractive, as it makes Mary Ellen's attraction to him in his flashback version of the night questionable, and by the fact that he isn't wearing the vest that has a missing button which is found in her hand.

The most interesting aspect of the treatment is the action that leads to Mary Ellen being killed - the idea that the violence against her is done to stop her biting - where the murder is clearly shown to be manslaughter. There is also a laugh line when the Hale home has an intruder. The police tell Lauren they found a key to the back door `in the guy's pocket', and Judith replies `It certainly wasn't offered to him'.

Stern's direction is as pallid as Purl. It's easy to agree with Lauren's conspiracy theory, but that doesn't provide any empathy to either side, and worst of all is that Mary Ellen is presented as disposable. No one grieves for her. Stern ends with Purl walking away from the court, and her decision to walk home is her apparent means of exorcism, though the long shot and freeze frame makes her indistinguishable from the crowd.