Mortelle protection

Annie (Caroline Goodall)is a battered wife. "In the end," she says in a voice-over at the beginning of the movie, "(my story) is just a little fairy tale about feeling desperate."

Annie is married to a Bill (Jon Gries), a cop and wife-beating control freak who won't let Annie get a job or a divorce. She has tried to run away, but he always catches her. And she knows that eventually he'll kill her.

He likes to remind her that he saved her from her sexually abusive father. As he slams her head to the floor, he screams something about "that freak called 'Daddy,' that sick old f--- !"

So, the idea of murdering Bill sounds pretty good to Annie.

Meanwhile, Bill's partner, Clark (Michael Beach), a good-hearted man, tries to help her. But he can offer her only the standard legal remedies that don't necessarily guarantee her safety.

Bill allows her to take a cooking class; she loves it, and it's a way to get out of the house. One evening the instructor introduces a new student, Tommy (Mark Harmon), to the class, and immediately he and Annie strike up a friendship.

She asks what he does for a living. "I kill people," he says -- and laughs, after a long pause. Uh, just joking...

Eventually she tells him about her predicament. He listens sympathetically, then mentions another solution, one that is more conclusive than anything Clark can offer.

She agrees to it, her problem is solved -- and then she finds out, to her horror, that when it comes to possessiveness, her husband was an amateur compared to Tommy.

I'm always wishing for better-than-average straight-to-video movies. And I got what I wished for with this film. Great acting (Goodall, Harmon, and Beach are simply perfect in their roles) and a script with frequent flashes of irony and wit make this a very entertaining and satisfying movie indeed.

This wasn't great art, but I liked it.

When you see the errors that the eventual antagonist permits himself, you begin to doubt that he is a cool, calculating assassin after all. I expected better by him as a first-rate actor. I understand the thread of the movie, but some logic lacks. Nonetheless, you'll have to see it for yourself to believe me. This will not take away from the fact that I am a big fan of Mark Harmon. I liked him better in his portrayal of Ted Bundy. At least it was believable - not merely because it was fact-based, but at least he had a more intelligent character. However, a more understandable end takes place, in spite of the antagonist's intelligence flaws (or maybe he was guided by love instead of instinct; I don't know), but in the end morality takes precedence over logic. That at least I can admire.

Standard B-movie fare. But strangely watchable. Caroline Goodall is kinda babe-like.....and the plot has a decent enough twist. Gotta wonder, is Goodall the sister of Jane Goodall of chimpanzee research fame? Looks similar. But her sister picked chimps better than Caroline picks men. 5/10. Just barely worth renting on video if you have seen everything else.

Very exciting film with a bang-up ending. This poor woman couldn't pick the right man with a set of ice tongs. As bad as hubby was, at least he wasn't a total psycho. Although this picture had some gaping holes in it [for instance: why didn't the cop call for backup?], it was still tense and dramatic. If I learned one thing from this movie, it was to always carry a backup modem connection.

Predictable but fairly well-made battered wife movie. Mark Harmon has a nice touch of menace to his character. The beginning of the movie takes away all tension at the end by basically showing the results of the climatic scene. I liked Michael Beach as the cop. He just projected a very good-guy quality.