Ketten der Vergangenheit

It's easy to tell a lie--create a new identity, move to a new town,sart a new life. But what happens when you're rediscovered by the people that lost track of you years earlier?

James Stockton (Scott Bakula) is a model citizen, a hard working contractor, husband, father, and baseball coach. He has established himself in a good life, earning a good reputation among the people in his town. When he is rediscovered at a funeral for his mother, even though he is incognito, people begin showing up, and James's perfect world comes crashing down. How can he safe his own life, as wll as the lives of his wife Lisa (Anabella Sciorra) and daughter Stacy (Cait Gentile)?

his suspensful drama, though it plays like a television movie of the week, is well-written and well-acted. Bakula, as James Stockton, plays the perfect family man, who happened to come from a troubling past. This is a different kind of role for him, as we are used to seeing him as the "Average" hero. The performances of the cast are all around good.

This is an all-around good movie, with enough suspense to keep the audience entertained. If you like movies that will make you think, enjoy a good thrill, or like Scott Bakula, then this is the perfect film for you.

The story for this film was a good idea, but it seemed to me that there was just something lacking, perhaps more attention to detail could have been employed. The main character was believable but the relationship between him and his wife was very flat. There was just no chemistry between the actors and I never believed for one moment that the wife loved the husband. Shame really, because how could you not love Scott Bakula!!

If you're like me and often frustrated by illogical movie plots (Why do smart people do dumb things in the movies?), then you'll appreciate the ingenious ending to this little film.

You might also appreciate the acting job turned in by the teenager who plays the daughter. She was picked out of a local soft ball team and had no prior acting experience.

I was a very small part of the technical crew on this film - I work for a technology consulting team, our creative services arm did some of the computer screens in this film.

Tiny easter egg, all the names used in inbox scenes throughout the movie are either in-movie characters, or the names of me and my coworkers.

I'm not sure how much I can talk about the details of how the film landed there, but after filming was completed it was shopped around to the cable networks, until it was picked up by USA for airing as a made-for-TV special. It did not see general DVD release, but was released by USA on VHS. A couple years later, it was transcoded to DVD as they were converting their back catalog - I think they went ahead and reformatted and added proper menus and special features as well, but someone who has it should probably comment on that. As a result, it was released to DVD market with very little fanfare, as others have noted.

Personally, I found it in the discount bin at WalMart and that was the first I knew it had been available - I had to track down some friends to find out the story...

Years later, I was working again with the same company when I was invited to take a tour of some of their production facilities - they still had the house from this film mocked up on one of their sound stages (I had never been onset during filming so I had never seen it) - the two story house was actually filmed as two separate one story houses! The second story was raised so someone could be filmed appearing to top the stairs leading up to it... very fascinating to see how they filmed it.

Not sure why so many negative reviews. Good solid film love the cast and the intrigue. The story keeps moving with twists and turns. Can't find anything really wrong with it. And delighted it's on YouTube. By the way - YouTube is filled with many good even great and yes enjoyable feature films tv films and series. This is one of them. Want to sit back with pizza or popcorn and enjoy a solid film. One of the enjoyable aspects is the familiarity with many of the actors. Like old friends brought together!!! Story develops well good script and the acting is top notch ... highly recommended !!! Enjoy.