Willed to Kill

It should be said from the start that this is a notch above the typical Lifetime movie. The lead actress is far better than most, and the story is above average. The film employs a familiar trope: the detective is contacted by the murderer during the course of her investigation. The murderer uses a voice distorter and speaks regularly with the detective by telephone. The bad guy is filmed in such a way as not to reveal his identity: from behind, in a shadow, from non-revealing angles. You've seen this many times before. Sometimes the viewer is allowed a bare glimpse of the murderer's chin or nose, but not enough to enable you to recognize the character. - Well, that's how it's supposed to work. But incredibly, the murderer is filmed in several shots so that his identity is clear. The filmmaker shows too much. This is clearly unintentional - you're not supposed to know which character, who, as in all these movies, turns out to be a character you're already familiar with but are not supposed to suspect, will turn out to be the culprit. But you do know, well before the final reveal, if you've been watching with only casual attention. This strikes me as a huge blunder. If you want to be kept in suspense, don't look at the murderer in the scenes in which he is on the telephone with the detective. If you do look, you'll recognize him.

Another LMN female playing the lead in tight leather clothes, long blonde stringy hair covering her face and a bad actress on top. Sorry, I get so sick of these blonde bimbos acting tough with guns and karate. It's so unbelievable it's funny.

The leading men do far better, even with secondary roles. Notably Michael Riley, Dylan Bruce and Ross McCall. They are much more believable even with the empty headed leading lady.

How many more of these older women playing younger roles with bleached blonde long stringy hair do we have to view. I have to admit that the style these days of long hair, mostly unkempt and hanging limp off their heads are getting to be a bore. It's bad enough they are all walking the street but we now are forced to watch them on TV. And it always seems that most of the women are older trying to stay young looking.

LMN please lets get some ladies with style and class.

The clues are laid out thoughtfully through-out the investigation. Clues pointing to many different suspects until only 2 real suspects remain. Many red herrings and dead-ends add to the story and forces the viewer to re-think their conclusions. Everything adds-up, there are no hidden facts. The acting was adequate and the pace was very good. I did not see any glaring errors, that are often seen in these low-budget type movies. Everything was quite logically put together and the suspense built at good pace. A very good crossword style mystery. If you like Agatha Christie style who-dun-its, you should appreciate this movie. Definitely worth watching.

More than anything I dislike when I commit two (2) hours of my time only to find out that the suspect was the most obvious and that this so called "mystery film" was no mystery at all. The main character in this film is the gun toting Boston detective Karyn Mitchell, played with so little character by actress Sarah Jane Morris. I really wanted to enjoy a mystery/thriller that focuses in on a two decade old serial killer named the Hades serial killer. Unfortunately, as the potential suspects kept increasing the actual mystery of the film kept waning.

I appreciate that generally speaking, made for TV movies are made within limited time constraints and limited budgets. But why does this type of made for TV serial killer themed film(s) have to not only come with limited intrigue, but also limited acting?

I can only imagine how much more interesting this film would have been if someone like Maria Bello, or Kate Beckinsale had accepted the role of lead detective Karyn Mitchell. I can't blame the poor performance all on Sarah Jane Morris. There were other weak acting performances such as with the police forces psychiatrist Doctor Aaron Kade played boringly by actor Michael Riley, and also her love interest what's his name Mark Hanson (hard to remember what scenes he was in as they were the most boring......yaaaaaawwwn) played by Dylan Bruce.

Oh, and then came the silly ending when the brilliant detective Karyn Mitchell breaks the case wide open and she brazenly (they say brazen, I would say stupid) approaches her number one suspect without any backup and gets caught with her proverbial pants down (her gun is taken away from her) so we are supposed to be on the edge of our seat. I actually fell off of my chair and my fall woke me up, thus my applying to the Guinness book of records for the longest yawn.

The film Willed to Kill has a catchy title, and not much more going for it. I give it a 4/10 for at least trying to create some level of suspense but unfortunately it does not pass the mustard test.

I actually liked it. Decent story line, plot was good, main actress was good. While I watched I had come to the conclusion that the seriel killer was one of 2 people, I was right, then it came down to catching the killer and my suspicions were right. Over all I liked worthy looking at it has more intellect then most dumb comedies these days