Determination of Death

Great little made-for-tv murder mystery with a real shocker at the end... Good script, acting was solid, well shot and edited. By all means, this is not big Hollywood stuff, but it was excellent for what it is. I really enjoyed it overall and would recommend it as a good rainy-day popcorn flick.

The whodunit is a genre that has not fared well over the years. Murder, She Wrote is typical - uninteresting stories, poor acting (except, in M,SW, for the lead actress) and an unimaginative climax. This movie is the very rare exception. The story is quite good for a TV movie and the actors keep you engaged. Yes, Marc Singer's performance is over the top, but so is his character, as evil a villain as you'll find in any film. Singer is a fine actor, which makes his wildly intense bad guy a pleasure to watch. All of the other actors do a better than creditable job, and the ending is a genuine surprise and makes sense to boot. The writing is entertainingly manipulative, designed to keep you guessing and off the track. -- Remarkably, the movie never drags and everything going on is essential to the internal logic of the story - except of course for the obligatory love interest between Greene's and Katt's characters. And the use of flashbacks to the attempted murder is a bit overdone. But on the whole this film is far better paced and absorbing than 8 or 9 out of 10 of the TV thrillers turned out these days.

Decent cast but the plot plodded along very slowly. It was very hard to suffer all the way to the end. A few twists here and there towards the end helped a little but not a lot.

Not the best on TV movie lists. A stellar cast does mediocre job with bad script. I guessed the killer from the beginning. Won't reveal. A shame to make you watch this terrible movie to find out, but thoze the rules, baby. With the likes of Veronica Hamel as her usual cold look self, Michele Greene, a bit on the boring side, John Ratzenberger a bit on the over weight side, William Katt, looking middle aged these days, George Dzundza, looking like he's serious about this movie, Marty Papazian, looking like he doesn't know what's going on, Alice Hirson, looking like she's lost Ellen DeGeneras and Marc Singer giving an over the hill acting job. Way over the hill.

Now some of these actors are good actors. So you hate to see them do a bad job, but this script demands it from them. I hate to think of the money it cost to hire them, so my heart goes out to the producer.

There is hardly anyone in the cast that I particularly like and would normally tune in to watch. However, I recorded this and figured I could dump it if it wasn't good.

I didn't dump it.

I will say nothing about the plot--except that it will probably keep you guessing to the end. (At one point I correctly figured it out, but I soon changed my mind.) The clues are all there, so you won't feel cheated by the ending--surprised probably, but not cheated.

As for the cast, everyone is good. However, Veronica Hamel and Michele Green are not aging too well. Greene was, surprisingly, much less annoying than I usually find her; and John Ratzenberger was very likable in a totally different, for him, role.