Jim Handy, who did those funny bits on SNL, in the book which detailed many of them, said something like, "... hold onto your hat when you see a movie contains a 'story-within-a-story!' "
Well, the same thing could be just as true -- and just as funny -- when you are presented with another "evil twin" story!
William Moses is surely a contender -- perhaps the leading one -- for the title of "king of the Lifetime/made-for-t.v. movie."
He's a good looking, engaging actor, who has played the wicked, vengeful man, out to menace and kill his comely prey, as well as the individual being menaced by another, either individually or within his family.
Here, he has the opportunity to gnaw the scenery like a horde of beavers as he plays the good and inevitably evil twin, presenting these diverse personalities to his/his brother's wife and child, and even spending a lot of time arguing with and menacing "himself."
Good fun, with an ending for which you can almost compose the dialog as the characters build towards to the supposedly tense, but hardly surprising, climax. Along the way, the "evil" guy is a combination of a father figure who sometimes talks like Dick Van Dyke or Bill Cosby, in their series -- but acts more like the far-out kook who dispatched his partner into the wood chipper in "Fargo."
I enjoyed these aspects of the film, which made a pretty mediocre story better.
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***Possible Spoiler (although probably not)***
Also raise from 6* to 7.
Wrote the above over a year ago, and just saw this opus for the second time. Since there is no doubt as to how story will end, can't really "spoil," but probably appropriate to indicate anyway.
Would still describe as I did originally, but noted something in the very ending of the flick which should be mentioned also, a common feature to many of these tortured/menaced-family offerings.
The last scene - apparently not too long after the big climax and dispatching of the evil-doer - shows the happy husband/wife/son, entering their upscale SUV, embarking on a happy vacation. It is remarkable to note how quickly the folks in these Lifetime stories have "recovered" from their ordeals - and now look like, say, the Bradys, the Huxtables, the Partidge family, etc., departing to the open road without a care in the world, as if nothing unusual had happened. (In "real life," they's have about 10 years of deep therapy, write three or four books, and appear on a half-dozen or more talk shows.)
Well, the same thing could be just as true -- and just as funny -- when you are presented with another "evil twin" story!
William Moses is surely a contender -- perhaps the leading one -- for the title of "king of the Lifetime/made-for-t.v. movie."
He's a good looking, engaging actor, who has played the wicked, vengeful man, out to menace and kill his comely prey, as well as the individual being menaced by another, either individually or within his family.
Here, he has the opportunity to gnaw the scenery like a horde of beavers as he plays the good and inevitably evil twin, presenting these diverse personalities to his/his brother's wife and child, and even spending a lot of time arguing with and menacing "himself."
Good fun, with an ending for which you can almost compose the dialog as the characters build towards to the supposedly tense, but hardly surprising, climax. Along the way, the "evil" guy is a combination of a father figure who sometimes talks like Dick Van Dyke or Bill Cosby, in their series -- but acts more like the far-out kook who dispatched his partner into the wood chipper in "Fargo."
I enjoyed these aspects of the film, which made a pretty mediocre story better.
===============================
***Possible Spoiler (although probably not)***
Also raise from 6* to 7.
Wrote the above over a year ago, and just saw this opus for the second time. Since there is no doubt as to how story will end, can't really "spoil," but probably appropriate to indicate anyway.
Would still describe as I did originally, but noted something in the very ending of the flick which should be mentioned also, a common feature to many of these tortured/menaced-family offerings.
The last scene - apparently not too long after the big climax and dispatching of the evil-doer - shows the happy husband/wife/son, entering their upscale SUV, embarking on a happy vacation. It is remarkable to note how quickly the folks in these Lifetime stories have "recovered" from their ordeals - and now look like, say, the Bradys, the Huxtables, the Partidge family, etc., departing to the open road without a care in the world, as if nothing unusual had happened. (In "real life," they's have about 10 years of deep therapy, write three or four books, and appear on a half-dozen or more talk shows.)