Above Suspicion

This is one of those films which apparently wasn't released - at least not widely - and I'd never seen it listed anywhere until now. I've always found Scott Bakula's work interesting, and he's one of the more likable actors around. The same is true of Annabella Sciorra, although their chemistry as the 13-year husband and wife, and model citizens/parents, etc., wasn't exactly "white-hot."

But this was still an interesting story, even in spite of this, and much better than a lot of the more elaborate releases both on television and big screens.

Although this wasn't the typical "Lifetime, made-for-TV" flick, it had the feel of one - and certainly one of the best ones. These movies often have the devious spouse, out to eliminate the other, sometimes with a "double life," sometimes not. Others deal with a secret, jaded past, and usually has a former significant other who arrives to spill the beans and menace his/her new family. And then there's the "best friend/neighbor" secretly disrupting the hero or heroine's life, and often planning to bump him/her off and fill the void.

So this picture, with the former life, long hidden, which eventually comes to light with substantial danger and consequences, and the inevitable suspicions that the "hero" may have a dark side, and be perpetrating the dangers which ensue - is not original at all. However, here it is presented with more believability and realism than normally, and with a satisfying resolution. Often these films take an hour and 58 minutes of the airtime to build to a predictable, all-too-brief, "2-minute" resolution. However, the last 20 minutes or so here present a truly interesting, strong (and heartfelt) climax.

Besides the two leads, the supporting actors (daughter, business partner and his wife, and the authorities from Bakula's past) are first-rate, and are a major reason this story is well-above the usual fare seen in this venue.

If you're like me and often frustrated by illogical movie plots (Why do smart people do dumb things in the movies?), then you'll appreciate the ingenious ending to this little film.

You might also appreciate the acting job turned in by the teenager who plays the daughter. She was picked out of a local soft ball team and had no prior acting experience.

I was a very small part of the technical crew on this film - I work for a technology consulting team, our creative services arm did some of the computer screens in this film.

Tiny easter egg, all the names used in inbox scenes throughout the movie are either in-movie characters, or the names of me and my coworkers.

I'm not sure how much I can talk about the details of how the film landed there, but after filming was completed it was shopped around to the cable networks, until it was picked up by USA for airing as a made-for-TV special. It did not see general DVD release, but was released by USA on VHS. A couple years later, it was transcoded to DVD as they were converting their back catalog - I think they went ahead and reformatted and added proper menus and special features as well, but someone who has it should probably comment on that. As a result, it was released to DVD market with very little fanfare, as others have noted.

Personally, I found it in the discount bin at WalMart and that was the first I knew it had been available - I had to track down some friends to find out the story...

Years later, I was working again with the same company when I was invited to take a tour of some of their production facilities - they still had the house from this film mocked up on one of their sound stages (I had never been onset during filming so I had never seen it) - the two story house was actually filmed as two separate one story houses! The second story was raised so someone could be filmed appearing to top the stairs leading up to it... very fascinating to see how they filmed it.

The remote slipped out of my hand and remained there till the final credits rolled. Great writing. Insanely unpredictable plot twists, almost all of them believable (the one that bothered me is hidden in a dictionary). This movie will make you doubt your closest friends and suspect them of murder. It will have you hiring private investigators and calling them from burner phones. Your own spouse's quirks will suddenly no longer make sense and you'll go rifling through their things for clues. You'll find them, then act strange around them till they accuse you of paranoia. Then you'll find out they never played Donald Duck at Disneyworld, that everything was a big lie. Or was it? Highly recommended to all fans of fine thriller mysteries.

This was actually a pretty okay film. But you can't miss any of it or you'll be @ a total loss. Scott Bakula plays his part well and you feel bad for him that all that stuff is happening to him. The only major problem is the married couple don't seem to really like each other.