Mr. Murder

This was a very very long entertaining film that really could have been cut in half before it started to become one big boring film. Stephen Baldwin,(Marty Stillwater/Alfie) played two characters in this film and gave a great performance fighting against himself and having to prove himself to his own family. Julie Warner, (Paige Stillwater) gave a great supporting role as his wife who had two girls, Caley Cuoco,(Charlotte Stillwater) and Brittney Lee Harvey (Emily). Brittney Lee Harvey is a very young girl and gave a simply great performance as the younger sister. Caley Cuoco is another actress who gave a great supporting role and a appeared on a great TV Show with the late John Ritter. Nice Sci-Fi film with lots of action but entirely too long for me.

I rented this as a DVD, unaware that it was originally made for TV. The screenplay has obvious breaks in it where commercials are meant to go, and they were so emphatically built up that I kept reaching for the "mute" button on the remote!

The story itself works, and Baldwin does a good job of carrying off both the good guy and the bad guy role. The writer and director seem to have the good sense not to overdo things.

Take for example the kid characters. Two young girls, obviously hostage bait, and they end up in the bad-guy's hands more than once. They're cute, but they are neither too brainless or unreasonably savvy, and we've seen too much of both extremes in that role in similar films. The older one does some fairly clever thinking that adds to the story.

Less well convincing were the cops, who start out good when they doubting the hero's story, but actually become more passive as the show goes on.

Probably the best thing to watch is not the villain, but the villain's villain, Drew Oslett Jr. Thomas Church actually looks like he could be James Coburn's son. But it is character's internal pain that drives the whole story. Church does his best, but it would have been interesting to give him more screen time to do it in.

The "science" part of this movie is really skipped over; anyone not willing to suspend disbelief will be sorely unsatisfied.

All in all worth seeing for a weekend with nothing else to do.

I've yet to see a movie made from a Dean Koontz novel that comes close to capturing the thrills and suspense he creates with the written word. While this movie is good enough to stand on its own, I think I'll stick with his novels.

A famous author (not Dean Koontz) meets his evil clone. The clone wants to lead a normal life by taking over his family.

I don't know why so many reviews are down on Baldwin. I thought that he and the whole cast did a good job, including the four child actors.

The movie's a little slow but still good if you take two nights to watch it. It's much better than Servants of Twilight (from Koontz's novel Twilight) and many other of his movies.

Intensity was really good as was the more recent Odd Thomas.

I would say all in all a decent TV movie. There was a lot from the book that never made it into the movie but that is to be expected. I'm sure Koontz himself would have done things different if he could have had FULL control. But considering the books are generally butchered for the screen anyway there is not much you can do about that.

The movie flowed well and the acting was solid. The kids were very real and believable, and Baldwin was good in the duel role. I thought the wife (played by Julie Warner) could have been cast better, she seemed a bit out of step with the feel of the story.

It's worth watching.