Mr. Murder

I felt compelled to write this review, although not much to my satisfaction. If you liked this movie, read the book, the book is a real piece of art. I regard myself as probably Mr. Koontz' biggest fan in Mexico. The movie, to be honest, is once again proof that his novels are real hard to put onto screen due to their amazingly crafted content. The cast, very disappointing. Stephen Baldwin is a great actor, just watch "The Usual Suspects", but the direction is to blame in this one, he just doesn't come up to the expectations of the colorful Martin Stillwater from the novel, far from it. And even more, miles away from reaching the powerful role of Alfie. The girls render a fairly good performance but obviously not helped by the director.

The scene where he reads the story is a moment to remember in the book, while in the movie it just comes out mellow and way too corny and cliched, at least some effort was made to remain truthful to the scene in the book.

It's a shame that no one has ever reached the power to render a good Koontz' story on the big (or even the small) screen. As a screenwriter one of my greatest wishes is to write an adaptation, particularly for "lightning". Don't know what else could I say, I guess the movie turned out into an international intrigue type instead of the human-dwelling experience the book is. The explanation about mistaking the blood samples is simply an insult to imagination and creativity, I am disappointed that Mr. Koontz' as Co-Producer would go with that. I am looking forward to finding a good adaptation of his novels. Phantoms wasn't that bad, but it wasn't in the same vicinity as the novel, despite the fact that he has the screenwriting credit. Hideaway, is a good movie, but doesn't reach the depth of the ending sequence in spite of all the effects. Servants of twilight, same story, face of fear, really to turn off the TV with the very first twelve minutes. I still have to watch the "Intensity" mini series.

Watch this movie, but also read the book.

Good Film. Decent Acting. Fine Plot (kinda like Soldier). Too Long !!!

The film starts well. It had me thinking that this kind of GM/Clone type stuff is possible and may well have been tried by governments as we speak. After a great opening 45 minutes the film descends into farce. Chase, evade, catch fight, chase, escape, fight, catch, chase, etc... At on point it feels like a superman flick. One leaves as the other enters, etc. Laughable. I did however enjoy the pathetic special effects when Baldwin was fighting with himself. Shocking!

I rented this as a DVD, unaware that it was originally made for TV. The screenplay has obvious breaks in it where commercials are meant to go, and they were so emphatically built up that I kept reaching for the "mute" button on the remote!

The story itself works, and Baldwin does a good job of carrying off both the good guy and the bad guy role. The writer and director seem to have the good sense not to overdo things.

Take for example the kid characters. Two young girls, obviously hostage bait, and they end up in the bad-guy's hands more than once. They're cute, but they are neither too brainless or unreasonably savvy, and we've seen too much of both extremes in that role in similar films. The older one does some fairly clever thinking that adds to the story.

Less well convincing were the cops, who start out good when they doubting the hero's story, but actually become more passive as the show goes on.

Probably the best thing to watch is not the villain, but the villain's villain, Drew Oslett Jr. Thomas Church actually looks like he could be James Coburn's son. But it is character's internal pain that drives the whole story. Church does his best, but it would have been interesting to give him more screen time to do it in.

The "science" part of this movie is really skipped over; anyone not willing to suspend disbelief will be sorely unsatisfied.

All in all worth seeing for a weekend with nothing else to do.

Ok.. I was planning to give this one a bad review, and when I found out that I saw the 127 minute edited version and not the hour longer original version, it just came clear to me how lucky I was. In short, if you've ever seen a thriller before then you will know all the twists and turns and it's just boring and bad. As for the "effects" when Stephen Baldwin wrestles himself... we just fell over laughing. And if you've ever read more than one Dean R. Koontz book then you probably know it involves a government experiment gone wrong. Avoid. Please.

I would say all in all a decent TV movie. There was a lot from the book that never made it into the movie but that is to be expected. I'm sure Koontz himself would have done things different if he could have had FULL control. But considering the books are generally butchered for the screen anyway there is not much you can do about that.

The movie flowed well and the acting was solid. The kids were very real and believable, and Baldwin was good in the duel role. I thought the wife (played by Julie Warner) could have been cast better, she seemed a bit out of step with the feel of the story.

It's worth watching.