A Lover's Revenge

Terrific, well paced thriller with William R. Moses,the Ken Melansky on the old Perry Mason television series giving an absolutely riveting performance as a millionaire psychopath who abuses his wife to no end causing her to make telephone calls to a radio therapist.

When he walks in on one of her calls, he chases her out of the house and she is fatally struck by a car while trying to flee. Moses is outraged and vows revenge on the therapist, really believing that she caused his wife's death.

Moses goes into full acting mode here. He creates situations which totally destroy the therapist's life, marriage, and ultimately leading to the death of the good doctor's wife. In the interim, he has paid a hooker to have a relationship with the husband, tape records certain messages and sets a scheme in motion that can only lead to absolute mayhem and destruction to all those who come within his orbit.

Moses has never been better. He is a cool, calculating maniac who will stop at nothing to achieve his objective. He is sinister all the way and even has police suspecting that the therapist killed her own husband!

This is a very well done movie and is highly recommended.

In Philadelphia, the psychologist Dr. Liz Manners (Alexandra Paul) is the host of the WLOR Talk Radio Show giving advices about relationships to her audience. When she suggests to her listener Sara Jane (Sophie Gendron) to leave her abusive and obsessive husband Kyle Lundstrom (William R. Moses), Sara runs away home chased by Kyle and is hit by a car, immediately dying. The psychopath Kyle decides to use his money to destroy Dr. Manners' life, and assuming the fake identity of the investor James, he meets her husband Rob (Gary Hudson) and poisons her marriage.

"A Lover's Revenge" is a predictable B-movie with a thriller that seems to be a soap-opera in some moments. The screenplay is flawed in many aspects; for example, Kyle Lundstrom called Dr. Liz many times in her cell phone; therefore, the police could trace his calls and easily reach his identity. Further, they never constructed an identikit picture of James to help the investigation. Last but not the least; the viewer knows the identity of the criminal since the very beginning of the story, breaking the tension. The edition uses too many cuts like in a soap-opera, but the gorgeous Alexandra Paul, William R. Moses and Peter Michael Dillon have great performances. In the end, "A Lover's Revenge" is an enjoyable entertainment. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Amor e Traição" ("Love and Betrayal")

A radio psychologist Dr. Liz Manners who offers relationship advice, finds her own life is in crisis, when she learns that because of her career ambition, her husband is having an affair. This has suddenly all come up to the surface, as one of her caller's obsessive husband has sworn revenge against her. He believes Manners drove his wife away from him and when trying to flee his controlled loved, she's killed by a passing car. So, three months have past and he goes by the name of "Ken Malansky" to gain Manners' trust. He pretends to be interested in her business, but secretly he wants to destroy her life in the process.

Why do I put myself in these situations of watching these bland made-for-television Lifetime presentations? I guess I'm hoping for something special. "A Lover's Revenge" keeps one watching, but it just never pays off, as it moves onto one lifeless and very, very contrived scene after another. I can't knock that it's not competently made, but this cookie-cutter thriller just doesn't generate much suspense and becomes too predictable in its implausibly elaborated make-up and over-explained details. Routine dialogues motivated by a bloated script seems to be building up something that never takes off. One real nagging element was how clueless the central characters are about what's really going on. The conveniently twisty story is pure trash at heart, glossed up by slick and polished filming techniques. The distant direction is simply going through the motions and falling into forced patterns. Some absurd actions that do occur are eye-rolling stuff. The tenable performances are particularly good, however William R. Moses was something far less then dominating as the psychopath. There were two choices; having hammy fun or playing it with subtle sinisterness. He was somewhere in between, but never could manage to pull it of convincingly. Alexandra Paul is adorably strong and potent as Dr. Liz Manners. There is capable support in the likes of Gary Hudson and Gabrielle Carteris.

It'll pass the muster if your looking for something comfortable, but I wouldn't go to big lengths to see it. Passably watchable.

This is a good , well directed and acted film. I have to say that it was good to see William Moses play a part other that Mr. Nice Guy for a change, and he did it well, showing that he is a versatile and solid actor. A strong storyline and good script carried this movie throughout , keeping me gripped to the end. I don't have any criticism at all, this is definitely one of the best thrillers I have seen in while. Well worth a watch !

I recently watched this on MyLifetime.com (thank you, Lifetime!) and it was great! Alexandra Paul, William Moses, and Gabrielle Carteris shined in their roles in this movie.

The basic plot of the movie is that Dr. Liz Manners (Paul) is a radio psychologist for a radio station that gives relationship advice. When she advises frequent caller Sara Jane (Sophie Gerdon) to leave her abusive, obsessive husband, Kyle Lundstrom (Moses), she tries to escape from him and is hit and killed by a car in the process. It is then that Kyle works his way into Liz's life and plots revenge against her, blaming her for destroying his marriage.

The acting was fantastic and the story was extremely compelling. While there were a few plot holes, (the most obvious for me is how Kyle found Liz to begin with) the movie was very enjoyable and I recommend you watch it on Lifetime's website or buy it on DVD if you can.

Also, this isn't a complaint or compliment; just something I noticed. At one point, Gabrielle Carteris' character looks up Kyle Lundstrom in the police database and says "I knew it" when she finds him. At first, I thought that meant she was Sara Jane's sister (the one she mentioned during some of her calls to Dr. Manners). But that isn't the case. Just wanted to share that.