Out of Control

So Marcie is an arrogant sl-t bit-h forrensic scientist wannabe detective who is totally clueless direspecting her dad and ignoring his valued advice! I agree with another contributor. They should have had a scene where Lisa beats Marcie to a pulp! By the I cannot stand the guy who plays the bad cop Gus! He also played a dirty cop in Her Fatal Flaw alongside Victoria Pratt!

Marcie Cutler (Laura Vandervoort) works police forensics in Chicago and aspires to be a detective despite her hero cop father's objection. She is brought into a new murder case. It's detective Lisa Grant's drug dealer informant. She's a recovering drunk and her gun is missing. She and Gus Sutton investigate the case with personal motives. Their supervisor Sinclair suspects a crooked cop within their ranks and brings in outsider Marcie to investigate.

I'm all in for Vandervoort. She is a gorgeous human being. Her acting is better than expected. This is a cheap cop drama. Quite frankly, Lisa is the more compelling character. The story would function better as a paranoid crime drama with Grant as the lead. Marcie is the less dramatic and less believable character. The plot is forcing her into the story. It would be more believable for getting Marcie's father into the investigation. The production, the writing, and the directing are all second rate. I imagine if this is the pilot, the show would not get picked up.

Actually, after the first 10 minutes of this, I was expecting another Canadian thrown-together piece of trash. In fact, I skipped ahead to the credits to verify the usual suspects (The Movie Network, MovieCentral, Canadian Film or Video Tax Credit, etc.). But I like to finish what I start, so I went back and watched it through.

To say I was "pleasantly" surprised probably isn't the right terminology. The movie is bad. It really should have been an episode in some TV series, at best, rather than eating up valuable movie time. But it wasn't the trip to the dentist that I was expecting. It keeps up a decent pace (mostly) and has an identifiable plot. The city obviously isn't Chicago, but it at least isn't obviously any other place either (unless you happen to live where it was shot). It's not Serpico, but it's OK, as another person wrote, to do laundry to.

In contrast to the other comment-writers, I have to say that Vandervoort's casting was the only good choice. All the others are clearly way out of their element (that is, in front of a camera) and not remotely believable in their roles (although some of this is due to the dreadful script, but good actors avoid such roles, so ultimately it is their fault). At least Vandervoort demonstrated the confidence that you'd expect in someone working for law enforcement, if nothing else. I doubt any of these characters (any of them) would last a day in the real job.

In all honesty I was expecting a pretty bad movie but I have to say that it turned out to be okay.

Plotwise it's your usual TV movie of the week standard fare. Nothing electrifying and the pace is rather pedantic but it's definitely a lot better than 80% of the made for TV movies that I've seen, and unfortunately for me I've seen quite a lot lately! The main cast puts their time in even if it is rather listlessly and formulaic. The only downside to the casting is that of Laura Vandervoot. She's highly unconvincing in her supposed role as a police criminologist and even more so as an aspiring detective to be, instead looking fashionable in most scenes and not really doing much. For someone who's supposedly top of their class in detective school she sure makes a lot of big mistakes and crosses some professional lines. However, the surprising part is that she didn't do a bad acting job. Nothing spectacular but nothing that sank to the depths of a certain Paris Hilton, which I must admit I had been expecting.

All in all, if you've got nothing to do on a Sat night, or even a weeknight and are waiting for the laundry to finish drying it's worth filling in the time. Don't watch with high expectations and you'll make it through the movie just fine.

This movie is an average to poor "made for TV" movie.

There's only one reason to watch, Laura Vandervoort. One of the most beautiful woman in the world, and she can actually act.

The writing and directing are the main problem and some of the supporting cast is also pretty weak.