The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story (2004) (TV)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Roger Young

Writer (WGA):

Dave Erickson (written by)

Release Date:

26 October 2004 (Hungary)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Dean Cain portrays Scott Peterson, the California man accused of murdering his 8 month pregnant wife, Laci.

Plot Keywords:

California | Pregnant Woman Murdered | Murder | Disappearance | Based On True Story

Cast

G.W. Bailey	...	Det. Gates
Sarah Brown	...	Kate Vignatti (as Sarah Joy Brown)
Dean Cain	...	Scott Peterson
Dan Cashman	...	Mr. Whitman
William Cowart	...	Shock Jock
Roark Critchlow	...	Todd Dewey
Marnie Crossen	...	Elderly Woman
Palmer Davis	...	Angela Panati
David Denman	...	Tommy Vignatti
Cassandra Eller	...	Amber's Daughter
Louise Gallagher	...	Jackie Peterson
Karen Gordon	...	Third Reporter
Annie Hinton	...	Dog Handler
Cindy Hogan	...	Kim Peterson
Joe Howard	...	Lee Peterson
Jackson Jarvis	...	Sammy Vignatti
Peter Jason	...	Ron Grantski
C.S. Keys	...	Jail reporter #1
Angela Lambert	...	Diane Sawyer (scenes deleted)
Heidi Marnhout	...	Donna Taylor
Erin McKinley	...	Babysitter
Tracy Middendorf	...	Amber Frey (as Tracy Lynn Middendorf)
Tina Molina	...	Amy Rocha
Randy Mulkey	...	The Skipper
Tom O'Brien	...	Det. Frank Ross
Paul Vincent O'Connor	...	Dennis Rocha
Tim Quill	...	Brent Rocha
Paul D. Roberts	...	First Reporter
Seema Sueko	...	Jail reporter #2
Dee Wallace	...	Sharon Rocha (as Dee Wallace Stone)
Gary Weeks	...	Jail reporter #3
Suzanne Whang	...	Second Reporter
James Whitson	...	Used Car Dealer
David E. Willis	...	Modesto News Anchor

Also Known As:

The Perfect Husband (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and brief language.

Runtime:

USA:120 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Canada:PG | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Modesto, California, USA

Company:

Sony Pictures Television

Goofs:

Continuity: When the detective closes his cell phone after receiving the preliminary results that the bodies belong to Laci and Connor, the antenna is extended. In the next shot it is retracted.

badly written, made too quickly

I watched this on TV a couple of months of ago and then recently after the trial was over, I watched it again because a friend of mine had a tape of it. First of all, Dean Cain tries to do a good job playing Scott Peterson and even sounds a little like him. It's sort of creepy but I kind of get the impression that Dean watched a lot of Scott's interviews and listened to him over and over again, trying to imiate him. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The movie is poorly written. It came out way too soon before too many facts were out and it's also way too favorable to Scott Peterson. It's not too often that the film casts a shadow of guilt on him. It does try to make the cops involved in the case look bad. The movie tries to convince us that they are more concerned with framing Scott than actually finding Laci Peterson. It also makes Laci's family and friends look bad. They are seen as people who turn on Scott very quickly, because of his selling of Laci's car and his affair with Amber Frey. The attempt to recreate times that Laci's family and Amber went to the press are also bad and look poorly staged. Since the conversations between Scott and Amber weren't public at the time, the writers tried to write out dialogue on what they thought Peterson might have said on his cell phone to Amber. Those scenes are pretty short,lol. There's also a fictional (guessing) couple who are supposed to be friends of Laci's and Scott's who fight over whether or not Scott did it. Typical idiot writers portray it as though it's the hysterical women (Laci's two friends) who think Scott is guilty and the cops who are after Scott. I'm really so sure that the cops and her female friends were really anxious to see Laci's husband on trial for murder instead of the who did this. I'm sure justice meant nothing to them and they were fine with the idea of the killer of the friend being on the loose as long as Laci's husband (whom they probably had to their houses dozens of times and who they knew thought they knew pretty well) getting sent to jail. That is beyond stupid. It was most likely difficult for them even beginning to think that Scott did it but they could no longer no ignore Scott's behavior or the evidence pointing to the fact that Scott most likely did it. The annoying part in the movie that I'm sure never happened in real life was everybody going around hollering "How'that going to look when you do that?" "It's going to look bad if you do this, Scott". Everybody was probably too upset about Laci to worrying about how things were looking, unless of course you've got something to hide. Why would friends advise Scott on how to behave unless they suspected he was guilty and want to help him look innocent? One of the earlier scenes where they are talking about giving a press conference and Dean goes, "The press has a victim, now they need a villain." That was really poor writing. The press conferences were about trying to get people to give tips about finding Laci, not about looking a villain, lol. Basically, this movie might have been interesting before all the facts and everything was out but now, it just makes you roll your eyes at it.