Murder on Spec

Not a Hollywood budget, but well done. "Mister10%" is a little over the top, but the story line is very plausible. My BS meter never peaked once during this movie. A good story line. And l'm one to usually complain about the writing. Brook Burn is very good in this. The movie is titled "Trophy Wife" and this is the first time I've called for a sequel to a low budget movie. "Trophy Wife 2" please!

I think that the negative reviews are very accurate and the others are watching a different movie than I am. I'm 38 minutes into it and can't believe the lack of investigation abilities that the "police" in this one have. I don't think they could catch a cold much less a criminal. Why is the person that admitted to the murder able to move about like a ghost and nobody seems to notice him? Why is the Kate Graham character doing her own investigation while the DA (dumb a**) police can follow her but no one else. I hope I make it to the end.

the review does not contain enough lines so: I think that the negative reviews are very accurate and the others are watching a different movie than I am. I'm 38 minutes into it and can't believe the lack of investigation abilities that the "police" in this one have. I don't think they could catch a cold much less a criminal. Why is the person that admitted to the murder able to move about like a ghost and nobody seems to notice him? Why is the Kate Graham character doing her own investigation while the DA (dumb a**) police can follow her but no one else. I hope I make it to the end.

We watched it - it was a passable time-waster built around a very charming leading lady, Brooke Burns (film a.k.a. 'Trophy Wife').

She won't challenge Meryl Streep for acting honors, but this was a low-budget vehicle built around the familiar device of a pretty, but determined, main character under attack by a sinister guy (a hacker, an extortionist, a serial killer, a combo - you choose). She will have to resolve to defeat him herself - there's no 'buddy' waiting to bail her out. In this case, the bad guy extorts money from women who have lost rich, but unpleasant, husbands in 'untimely deaths' - deaths he caused, 'on spec' - that is, on 'speculation' that the women will gladly pay a commission to be rid of the villainous 'ex'. It's not an entirely new idea - Alfred Hitchcock used a similar twist in his old TV mystery show.

The difference here is that the villain claims to be able to implicate poor Brooke in the murder-for-hire. That part is stretchy. Nonetheless, the camera work is nifty (reminding me of a Director using tribute-type camera angles to echo the genre), and the gadgetry makes for interesting - if implausible - entertainment.

It took me a while to realize that the 'killer' had his victims 'over a barrel' - they paid, instead of going to the Police. No wonder they don't want to talk to Brooke when she starts investigating these cases herself: these 'victims' are complicit in a crime. It's an intriguing kind of 'con' - you can't go to the Police with your story, after you pay. hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

While the computer and technical abilities of the perpetrator are strictly sci-fi, we saw a similar device used in a big-budget British mini-series with John Hannah entitled 'Amnesia'. The bad guy's ability to produce phony tech data was essential to moving the plot forward, and building the suspense to a surprising climax. The device isn't as well orchestrated in 'Trophy Wife', but it serves the same purpose: it keeps our hero fighting to get her story believed.

Finally: life has a way of imitating art.. as silly as the plot might seem, there are fraud, and murder-for-profit cases in the true-life crime annals that seem stranger than anything we've read in fiction.

So, I gave the film a 7 - for the 'heroine-battles-super-bad-guy-B-movie-suspense' genre.

There's nothing about this film that is even remotely believable. Grey, overcast skies, oh, I recognize that place, it's Vancouver, Canada - home of the worst movies in the world! And this is yet another piece of garbage from there. Some guy named Harvey Kahn makes these terrible films. Here is an excerpt of something he said during the making of this film

>>In the 1967 classic The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman's title character gets some succinct career advice from a friend's father: "Plastics!" Vancouver-based producer Harvey Kahn, here to shoot Murder on Spec, had a similar experience in the 1970s. "I had a guy come up and put his arm around me and he said, 'Cable!'"<<

Yeah, well that guy that put his arm around Mr. Kahn must have seen some of his earlier work because this garbage ain't gonna ever be seen anywhere BUT cable so he was sure right about that!

I'm sorry, this movie is very bad.

I just watched this on Lifetime so I should have known better. As much as I love looking at Brooke Burns, this movie is terrible.

Let's start with the screenplay. Horrible. Completely not believable. The whole premise of the story is ridiculous. Could something like this go on? Maybe. But the way the screenplay is written, there's just no way. It's just so outrageous. Actually, it's comical when you watch it. The acting is pretty funny as well.

If you want to laugh at bad writing, bad filming, bad screenplay, watch this movie. It should be shown in all filming 101 classes about what NOT to do in film-making.