Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey

This is a made for tv movie about the abduction of a young girl and her amazing ability to keep cool. This is based on a true story.

Lisa McVey lives a life that is overflowing with adversity but she has a strength that keeps her hopeful for her and her younger sister. While she lives with her grandmother and her sister is living with her mother, she is being sexual abused by her grandmother's live in boyfriend. She works at a small doughnut shop and even the money she makes is being taken away by her grandmother's boyfriend. Her mother and grandmother both know what is going on but seem to be indifferent to the situation.

After leaving the doughnut shop after a late shift, she is abducted, raped and taken to her rapist's home. There he continues to abuse her but she does her best to play along and begins to manipulate his emotions. He finally reaches a point where he is ready to dispose of her but she manages to convince him to spare her life. In the long run, this will be the saving grace in all aspects of her life and his downfall.

This is a great story. Kudos to McVey. She did an amazing job and most likely saved a lot of lives in the long run. You know, they say that you never know your own strength until strength is your only option. This is a testament to that.

The quality of this seems like it may have been a Lifetime movie. I don't know for sure but I don't have a problem with Lifetime movies so that's not an issue for me. The lead actress did a great job in my opinion. I think that movies based in reality have a stronger impact on me. I appreciate the small miracles that are happening all around us on a daily basis yet we never knew they were there.

It is a great story. The script and quality are made for tv so this isn't an epic film with a huge budget. It was worth watching for me though.

I thank my lucky stars to have been brought up by two hard working and loving parents. Although my own childhood and my four (4) siblings were brought up in a loving home with clean clothes and hot meals and much attention, some of our neighborhood friends were not so lucky. I realized at an early age what a neglected child who is continually traumatized can end up living a life much like Lisa McVey must have went through. I found the troubled childhood of Lisa McVey real and disturbing.

I give much credit to the actors who brought much realism to this fact based true life story. Those negative reviewers need to lighten up and realize how difficult it is for both the writer and director to encapsulate a harrowing real life child's drawn out trauma over multiple years into a 90 minute crime/drama made for TV movie.

Not all movies are meant to entertain but instead, to bring awareness to a particular horrible crime(s) such as murder, sexual child abuse, incest, kidnapping and/or rape. As for this film, the perpetrator, Bobby Joe Long, was convinced by his latest young victim Lisa McVey, to release her.

Lisa McVey now an adult, works in law enforcement and Bobby Joe Long was sentenced to death. Real life story. Real life drama. Real life outcomes. I give this made for TV film a highly deserving 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

I started watching this with no expectation, and after about 30 minutes I was really engrossed in the story. Whilst there were some parts that suffered from acting that wasn't so great, overall I thought this was done really well and was suspenseful. What a truly horrific person to have done those crimes and what an incredibly strong and clever woman to have gone through all that she did.

Horribly hard to watch in so many ways (almost everybody except Lisa McVey is an absolute a$$hole), but so empowering also. If this movie is even close to accurate compared to the real story then Lisa is a true hero. All of the actors are talented and the characters are intriguing, but by FAR the standout is Katie Douglas who plays Lisa. I'd never heard of her before watching this, but I'm now a huge fan. She was only 19 or 20 when she played this role but already had the rare skill of what I call "silent acting", the ability to relay emotion with nothing but facial expressions, eye movements, body language, and meaningful silence. She's a phenomenal actor. The other standouts are David James Elliott, who plays Sergeant Larry Pinkerton (one of the few good guys), and Rossif Sutherland (Donald's son) as the terrifyingly-disturbed and violent rapist/killer. Impressive cinematography, lighting, scoring, and overall direction add to the power of this movie. If you can make it through the first half of pure evil, you should be as impressed as I with Katie Douglas' portrayal of a truly remarkable young woman.

An intriguing story to say the least ... a very hard to swallow story to watch. Thankfully the movie does not delve on and does not linger around on the really upsetting scenes that happen. Since this is a true story, it is even more incredible. You may know or guess where this is going, but the way it unfolds and the things we learn ... it's quite something! The movie manages to hold your attention for sure - and the empathy level we have is quite high.

The actors involved are really good ... and I was on the edge of my seat. I have a thing for things that are morally right ... or justice in general. I know this really got to me ... quite the extraordinary story!