A Date with Darkness: The Trial and Capture of Andrew Luster

On 14 July 2000, in Ventura County, California, the young Connie (Marla Sokoloff) is raped by the Max Factor heir Andrew Luster (Jason Gedrick) after ingesting a drug called Liquid X in a glass of water offered by him in a night-club. With the support of her father, she reluctantly decides to go to the police and tells her snapshots of the occurrence. Connie and the police collects evidences to send Andrew to the jury and during the investigation, two other victims of Andrew, Sarah (Sarah Carter) and Teri (Stefanie von Pfetten), are found and join the accusation. After almost three years, Andrew is sentenced to 124 years in prison for his 86 counts, but he escapes to Mexico, where he is finally arrested by the Mexican authorities and deported to USA on 24 June 2003.

"A Date with Darkness: The Trial and Capture of Andrew Luster" is a great TV movie based on a true story. I liked the way the story is disclosed and the performance of the cast, specially the cynical face of Jason Gedrick, who is perfect in the role of a manipulative sociopath. Although being a made-for-TV movie, this movie has a good screenplay, direction and acting. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Líquido X" ("Liquid X")

This incident reminds me of the Alex Kelly case in Ct. Rich boy rapes young girls and finally 3 of them have the courage to come out and accuse him only to him to leave the country while on trial. Both get convicted in absentia. This was a pretty straight forward movie. I found it very scary that the women had no idea they were drugged. Only because the nut taped everything were they able to find out what had happened to them. THere are things that were not explained. Why was the Max Factor heir doing this, what was reason? As I understand he was raised by his mother and she was a regular type of person, who was not into the the rich and famous crowd. Oh well. Another thing is that they never touched on how old he was. This was older guy, hanging out with a bunch of 17 year olds. I am normally not a fan of the the female star, who IMO was part of the downfall of the Practice, but she is very good in this movie. there was a scene in this movie in which one of the women are hesitant to testify because she is afraid he might get away with it. Normally I would not understand her fear, there were tapes of him raping these women. But we are talking about California, a place wherre you can kill Natalie Wood and get way with it. I do feel there is a culture in California that does idolize the rich more then anywhere in this country. So I felt for her.

I also want to know why the Judge seemed so taken with Luster? He seemed very hostile to the Prosecution. Which once again might be California thing, because most places the judge is usually pro prosecution. THe movie was suppose to end before he was caught. But DOG the Bounty Hunter took care of business and found him sunning down in Mexico. Apparently not really acting like he was in hiding. I remember when that happened and the FBI seemed very embarrassed that they did not catch the guy and even had Dog kept in jail. I that would of been a interesting story in itself. This is a good movie to waste a rainy day with. THe performances are all very good and it is a swift moving movie.

I was a big fan of "The Practice" until recently (due to the cast cuts, including Marla), which is one of the main reasons why I wanted to watch this film - loved Marla's work on the show and her character Lucy. Another reason is just because it looked so good - and it WAS! I'd have to agree with the above poster that states some of the content is explicit, but all in all it was great! The ladies gave wonderful performances. If you missed it, don't worry - Lifetime repeats like crazy. If you get the chance, you should definately sit down and watch. Two thumbs up!

The other user comment is obviously for another movie. This TV-movie is about how Luster drugged three women and did things to them while on video. During the trial, Luster runs away. It's pretty entertaining for a true crime movie, but the viewer doesn't see any of Luster's motivation, and what led him to commit these crimes. We never see the psychology behind his actions. An explanation and motive would have made it so much better.

"A Date with Darkness" is not entirely what you would call, easy to watch. Some of the scenes in this movie are very explicit.

However, it's not like those explicit scenes would at all ruin the story.

I would give this movie a 10/10