Lies and Crimes (2007) (TV)

Director:

Mario Azzopardi

Writer:

Morrie Ruvinsky (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

A woman moves to a new home after her police officer husband is killed. She soon discovers a place where growing prescription drug abuse is creating a nightmare of lies, crime, and murder. |

Cast

Estella Warren	...	Sally Hansen
James McGowan	...	Charlie Danzinger
Tamara Hope	...	Kirsten
J.D. Nicholsen	...	Gary
Art Hindle	...	Captain Vic Bochner
Wayne Ward	...	Duncan
Joe MacLeod	...	Dirk
Bruce McFee	...	Chief Riddel (as Bruce McPhee)
Debra McCabe	...	Arlene (as Debra Lynne McCabe)
Richard Fitzpatrick	...	Stan
Scott Gibson	...	Eddie
Craig Stickland	...	Brad
Wendy Lyon	...	Marcia
Adam Gaudreau	...	Garrison
Conor Green	...	Junkie

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Chesler/Perlmutter Productions

Good enough

Eddie is a big city cop. His wife Sally is a math teacher. They have dreams of giving up city life and moving to an old farmhouse in a small community.

One night an intruder shoots Eddie. In addition to having to cope with the loss, Sally finds out that some of Eddie's activities may have been inappropriate.

Sally moves into the farmhouse by herself. She is welcomed by some neighbors but not others. One of her first visitors is a mean German Shepherd mix named Dutch, who eventually learns to trust her.

Stan is the local pharmacist, but he seems to violate the law in order to be compassionate (and the local cop also looks the other way). Duncan's wife Arlene is very sick and needs pain medication, but Stan knows what he is really doing with most of the pills--their insurance won't cover everything, and there are lots of expenses.

Stan is a widower with two children. Kirsten wants to get into college but is having trouble with math. Her boyfriend Brad is a junkie. Dirk is also a junkie, and he resents that Dutch seems to prefer Sally, but Dirk does mistreat the dog when he gets high.

Apparently Eddie knew people in this town. Gary, who turns out to be a drug dealer, welcomes Sally but soon becomes threatening, wanting to know what Eddie did with the drugs or the money he got for them. Eddie was working undercover, but his friend Vic, another cop, believes Eddie was clean. Was he? Was his killing a hit related to his work?

This was a pretty good movie. No standout performances to speak of, except maybe the dog, but Estella Warren is good as Sally. Sally has to be strong to cope with everything she is going through.

There is not a lot of violence, at least not the explicit kind. I don't know whether some violence was edited out for TV, but a couple of scenes appear to be missing something.

Because there is so much emphasis on drug use, I wouldn't exactly recommend this for kids. It's not really surprising that the bad guys use guns, because that would be perfectly natural in the city.

I question how much the writers knew about math. Was "quadrilateral equations (there is no such thing)" a sign Sally needed to get away from it all? Is Kirsten actually that clueless about the meaning of F of x? I didn't study any kind of math with the concepts she is describing.

The ending is really exciting.

Not a masterpiece, but good enough.