Nowhere to Hide

Average mystery where a young and beautiful woman (Arquette) and her son are harrased by his ex-husband after the divorce. Afterward, enter the police and finally the FBI that offered special protection for the lady in distress because her ex-husband would be a great boss in the ranks of the organized crime in America. But is it the true? Good premise and so-so development completely marred by a simple and unconvincing ending. I give this a 5 (five).

Oh a vaguely once famous actress in a film where she plays a mother to a child . It`s being shown on BBC 1 at half past midnight , I wonder if ... yup it`s a TVM

You`ve got to hand it to TVM producers , not content on making one mediocre movie , they usually give us two mediocre movies where two themes are mixed together and NOWHERE TO HIDE is no different . The first theme is a woman in danger theme cross pollinated with a woman suffering from the pain of a divorce theme which means we have a scene of the heroine surviving a murder attempt followed by a scene having her son Sam ask why she divorced ? And being a TVM she answers that the reason is " That people change " rather than say something along the lines like " I`m a right slapper " or Your daddy cruises mens public toilets for sex " as does happen in real life divorce cases . And it`s young Sam I feel sorry for , not only are his parents divorced but he`s as thick as two short planks . Actually since he`s so stupid he deserves no sympathy because he`s unaware that a man flushing stuff down a toilet is a drug dealer , unaware that you might die if someone shoots at you , and unaware that I LOVE LUCY is painfully unfunny . If only our own childhoods were so innocent , ah well as Orwell said " Ignorance is strength " . Oh hold on Sam is suddenly an expert on marine life ! Is this character development or poor scripting ? I know what one my money`s on . And strange that Sam the boy genuis hasn`t noticed that if the story is set in 1994 then why do people often wear clothes , drive cars and ride trains from the 1950s ? But as it turns out during a plot twist it`s the mother who`s the dummy . Then there`s a final plot twist that left me feeling like an idiot for watching this

This one's improbable but likeable, and as good or better than most made-for-TV movies, largely thanks to Rosanna Arquette.

There are some nice touches and a sense that everybody was doing their best to make it work.

When the complicated twist was revealed, I looked at my watch and saw the movie had about 10 minutes to run. Like others here, I wondered how the hell are they going to resolve all this? They sorta did, and sorta didn't.

I guess Rosanna Arquette just moved on to the next project and maybe never even saw the final cut of this. Whatever, she delivered a solid, honest performance.

Finally, I know I'm being pedantic, but it was an episode of "The Lucy Show" the kid was watching, not "I Love Lucy".

Sarah is going through her divorce where she has won custody of her son, 2 houses, half a business and a million cash. She is the target of an attempted murder and taken into protective custody of the FBI and she discovers her ex-husband is a leading mobster and her testimony is needed to put him on trial. With her life more in danger than ever she, her son Sam and FBI Agent Kevin Nicholas.

This starts as a pretty standard "woman in peril" TV movie and really stays that way for most of it. The film doesn't have that much excitement and just moves from one location to another with the main strand of the film being the romance between Sarah (Rosanna Arquette) and Kevin (Scott Bakula).

The performances are standard at best. Arquette is quite good as the woman in danger, but some scenes are just terrible - in the first five minutes alone she "plays" piano with her son as they both nod to different beats without seeming to move their arms sideways. Bakula is far too rigid as the FBI agent making it difficult to like his character and it makes the later romance with Arquette seem really unlikely. The standout performance is Max Pomeranc as the child Sam. He was brilliant in Innocent Moves and was good here too, but even he has very little to do.

20 minutes from the end there is a really good twist - I honestly didn't see it coming. And it is devastating - even more so because you don't expect something clever in a film of this standard. Unfortunately, rather than end the film on a bombshell that would have been a great (albeit sad) ending, the film stretches it out for another 20 minutes to get to a very lazy, convenient "happy" ending. This really blows it for me and I would much rather have seen the film end on a really clever twist.

Overall this is a pretty dull TVM. The thriller doesn't work and the romance is unconvincing. The twist is really good but bottles it and gives the TV audience what it wants - a happy ending that doesn't stretch your brain at all.

Few performers can claim to have made two unrelated movies that make a perfect double bill; Rosanna Arquette made "Nowhere To Run" in 1993, and the following year she starred in "Nowhere To Hide." Now, she has done some good TV projects - "The Executioner's Song," "Promised A Miracle" and "Son of the Morning Star" come to mind - but this is closer to "Poison" and "I Know What You Did" on the quality scale, alas.

From the opening scene with Rosanna and Max Pomeranc (as her son) engaging in the least convincing piano miming in screen history, you know you're not in for a quality watch; the basic storyline had possibilities - a soon-to-be-divorced woman (Miss Arquette) finds out that her soon-to-be-ex wants to kill her, and goes under the protection of FBI agent Scott Bakula - but the actual movie is so spectacularly dull that it took me three tries to get through it, something no movie with Rosanna Arquette has ever required me to do. (Not even "Off The Wall.")

You don't get much in the way of action, or even emotion, though it's unusual to see an American movie actually have Vancouver play itself for once instead of standing in for various U.S. cities (though it does that here as well). Bakula's too stiff to make an impact, and though Rosanna tries hard you get the impression she doesn't care much for the script... not that you can blame her. It's not until towards the end that it remembers it's supposed to be a thriller and throws in a couple of genuinely surprising plot twists, but by then it's too little too late. Call it a missed opportunity; a good storyline ruined by bad execution.

Executive producer Stan Rogow's other credits include "Lizzie McGuire." An animated version of Rosanna Arquette supplying commentary would have enlivened this 'un no end.