The Accidental Witness (2006 TV Movie) User Reviews

Good story with predictable ending and a soap opera romance

[krorie · 6/10 · 18 April 2006]

Though the ending is highly predictable, the events leading up to the ultimate confrontation between killer and victim are filled with thrills and suspense. The weakest part of this made-for-TV flick is the blossoming romance between Christine (Natasha Gregson Wagner) and her part time live-in Jeff (Aaron Pearl). Too much time is taken away from the action to devote to this relationship which degenerates into soap opera melodrama.

The plot is excellent. A highly ambitious second-rung corporate executive, Victor Sandeman (Currie Graham), is losing his life style as a result of poor investments. He sees a way out via a company merger, but the old man who runs the business opposes the deal. Victor decides to murder the old-timer so his weak-willed highly malleable son will be in charge. Thus the merger will be approved through Victor's manipulation of the heir. One problem, while carrying out his nefarious ploy with the old man's body still in the trunk, he rear ends a vehicle. The driver whose car is hit, Christine Sternwald, remains adamant that all the information needed for insurance purposes be provided. This leaves Victor in a quandary. He makes up his mind to get rid of the accidental witness. This leads to several neat complications in the story involving mistaken identity, frustrating lures, and a police investigation into a homicide made to look like a heart attack leading to a car crash.

I'm just trying to survive!

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 11 June 2008]

***SPOILERS** Having gotten wiped out in the latest stock market crash Brunel Global Securities' top honcho Victor Sandeman, Currie Graham, is desperate to get his boss Raymond Brunel, Don Mackey, at the firm to merge with the O'Neil Banking Conglomerate.

Not going along with Sandeman's hair-brained idea has unknowingly put Raymond Brunel's life in danger. Setting up an elaborate plan to knock off the old guy and get his not so on the ball grandson David(David Lewis), whom he can easily manipulate, in charge has Sandeman put that plan into motion the very next evening.

After murdering Raymond, by smashing his skull in, Sandeman stuffs his body in his car and plans to set it on fire with Raymonds body's propped up on the front seat. Just one small and insignificant thing happens to scudded Sandeman's perfect murder plan. He had a fender-bender accident with young paralegal Christine Sternwald, Natasha Gregson Wagner, and everything went down hill for him from that point on.

Having gotten a good look at Sandeman's face, who impersonated the dead Raymond Brunel, Christine could very well connect him to Raymond's murder! And this is something that Sandeman, in being thrown behind bars for the rest of his life, couldn't and wouldn't accept! To the point of shutting up Christine for good!

At first terrified in losing his home and car, due to bank foreclosures, and then his freedom, in the murder of Raymond Brunal, Sandeman goes all out to first find where Christine lives and then, like with old man Brunal, murder her. Sandeman being the loser that he is screws up every time in his efforts to murder Christine leading to his free falling demise at the end of the film.

Breaking into Christine's apartment Sandeman brutally murders her room-mate Maggie Wexler (Enid-Raye Adams),thinking that she's Christine, by mistake! This turns on Christine to the fact that someone's out to get her and checks out this Raymond Brunal, through his car registration, finding that he's not only dead but at least 25 years older then the man, Sandeman, she saw at her fender-bender accident.

Getting more desperate and crazy by the minute Sandeman blows his cover and come out in the open to get rid of this pain in his butt, Christine Sternwald, once in far all. As you would expect Sandeman screws himself up, after murdering a police detective, again and this time for the last time in the movie.

It seemed so easy for the butterfingered Victor Sademan to kill people who, at the time he killed them, were no threat to him at all even the cop, Curtis Ahenakew, who had no idea of what crimes Sandeman committed! For all the cop knew Sandeman was only guilty of breaking and entering! But when it came to to killing Christine Sternwald whom he was really after Sandeman, instead of blowing her away, went into this long song and dance act about his life experience's, as if Christine was his psychiatrist, giving the police and Christine's boyfriend Jeff, Aaron Pearl, enough time to come to her rescue.

Going Bump in the Night

[wes-connors · 6/10 · 19 November 2012]

In Seattle, Washington, ambitious "Brunel Global Securities" executive Currie Graham (as Victor Sandeman) proposes to merge with another company. When owner Don MacKay (as Raymond Brunel) declines the offer, Mr. Graham decides to murder the leader. Graham carefully plots the older man's demise, but has a fender-bender with attractive paralegal Natasha Gregson Wagner (as Christine "Chris" Sternwald) en route. "The Accidental Witness" unwittingly causes Graham's plans to unravel. Complimented by a tight plot (by Michael Rhodes) and pulsating score (by Brent Belke), director Kristoffer Tabori and the "Lifetime" TV Movie crew make this an engaging thriller. Graham's performance holds it together.

****** The Accidental Witness (4/17/06) Kristoffer Tabori ~ Currie Graham, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Aaron Pearl, David Lewis

Woman drives by a murder in progress to which she's oblivious. Murderer pursues her.

[stillwritin · 1/10 · 10 October 2012]

Great acting but horrible script -- unless you LIKE movies where the heroine is supposedly going back to law school but is really, really stupid. (And the police are nothing like CSI or SVU or any other such show.) The "heroine" has long hair that flips in front of her eyes a lot and she also has a penchant for ensuring she can't hear either -- too plugged into her music. You first see her driving through a parking lot spending more time looking at her player than where she's driving, and my first impression was a wish she'd hit one of those parking lot pillars to learn to watch where she's going. She drives past a murder in progress - the killer pulls a plastic bag over the head of a 70-ish man, hits him repeatedly on the head, and puts him in his own trunk. Ms. Oblivious drives by and the killer follows her in the victim's car and rear-ends her. But a nearby police car prevents him from killing her there. She asks for his insurance info, so she clearly hasn't realized he's a murderer, but he's as stupid as she is and sets off to eliminate the "accidental witness." But before he goes after her, he sets his first victim's car on fire and crashes it. Any competent medical examiner should find that the victim had a stove-in skull, but the police don't suspect foul play until well into the movie. Meanwhile, the moronic murderer tries to run over the witness in a white van - she kindly told him her jogging schedule in their two-minute conversation after the fender bender. He kills the wrong girl. She finds the body -- if the killer had stuck around he could have gotten her too because she doesn't know enough to get out when the lights don't work and there's a dead body on the floor. He lures her to a deserted garage where she sees a white van but a homeless man's sudden appearance prevents him from another murder attempt. Earlier, she has confessed to her fiancée, who's refurbishing a loft (saw his nail gun and visions of Lethal Weapon (1, I think) danced in my head) that she was attacked jogging in the park, but when she tells him she's beginning to suspect she's in danger (DUH!), the boyfriend is doubtful. (Clearly they're a perfect match intellectually.) After all this, she still is naive enough to let the guy delivering groceries LET HER FRONT DOOR OPEN while he goes for the rest of the bags. And for all her bragging about jogging every morning, she can't even run faster than the desk-jockey chasing her in the big finale.

Good and bad

[Lizzie-20 · 7/10 · 18 April 2006]

I thought the plot of this story was pretty good, except for the motivation of why this guy goes nuts and starts killing people. Stress and pressure from the office and money issues don't cut it.

Also, the decision to merge with another company I'm sure wouldn't be just between two guys -- surely the grandson would have known and other people at the company.

I don't think that Natasha is a very good actress. I think she has limited range and some of her line readings were awful. She's very pretty and looks very much like her late mother Natalie Wood, but she didn't inherit her mother's talent.

Also, she didn't seem all that broken up about her beloved friend and roommate being killed -- going back to work the next day after three hours of sleep and barely acting like anything is wrong? Hmmm! The rest of the cast was talented. Twas for the most part entertaining.

Natasha shines through this film

[veronicammartin · 9/10 · 19 November 2012]

Natasha Gregson Wagner acts very well in this above average TV film. I was left surprisingly pleased with it, for all it was an afternoon movie! The film has many thrills and lots of dramatic irony moments that made me want to shout out at the screen to warn the heroine and others.

Natasha plays an aspiring legal who does n't know that she has witnessed a murder and is unaware that the murderer is pursuing her.

The sub plots is interesting with a reliable fiancé , stolidly supporting her. The bad guy in this film is excellently and nervously played showing a man on the edge.

I would just like to know what happened to the policeman at the end.

Suspense and Thrill

[mandyvs-87214 · 8/10 · 1 July 2021]

This film left me on the edge of my seat and wanting more.