L'amour avant tout

Cheryl Ladd is pretty and winsome as a single mom wrongly sent to prison after her new Boyfriend frames her to get himself a lighter deal. It's a pretty Hollywood version of prison but the issues are quite well highlighted. Guilty pleas of defendants even when they are innocent. The plight of mothers in prison and their kids. Jean Smart plays the sister who looks after her kids while she is in prison. Watch out for a young Angela Basset.

Wrongly convicted for a crime she did not commit, a single mother by the name of "Annie Gallagher" (Cheryl Ladd) has to rely on her sister "Cathy" (Jean Smart) to take care of her three children while she has to contend with a number of other serious issues during her incarceration. Needless to say, the addition of three young children also creates problems for Cathy as well. Meanwhile, the man responsible for framing Annie escapes justice altogether. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I initially didn't expect much from this movie due to the fact that the overall scenario of an innocent person being sent to prison has, more or less, been done many times before. Fortunately, this film delves a bit deeper into some of the harsh realities that these people face which was complimented by decent acting on the part of both Cheryl Ladd and Jean Smart. That being said, this turned out to be fairly entertaining drama, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

The story concerns a mother of three sent to prison for 15 years for a crime she did not commit,on the testimony of the real drug dealer who got off on a 1 to 3 plea bargain as a reward for his perjury. Perhaps this isn't the greatest social drama ever made, but it points up the unreliability of our justice system, and the total inadequacy of any plan to care for children of convicted women, guilty or not. Also illustrated is the the fact that violent (20%) and non-violent (80%) inmates are all treated alike once in the clink. Our totally wrong-headed drug laws are responsible for most people in prison today, although the film doesn't emphasize this particularly. It's a film well-acted and produced and better edited than most TV movies. Jean Smart, an alumna of Ashland, Oregon's Shakespeare Festival, is a stand-out performer as the victim's sister. Her life is as much disrupted by the wrongful incarceration as that of the victim, played winningly by Cheryl Ladd. It's well worth a watch.