À visage découvert

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.

It's easy to tell a lie--create a new identity, move to a new town,sart a new life. But what happens when you're rediscovered by the people that lost track of you years earlier?

James Stockton (Scott Bakula) is a model citizen, a hard working contractor, husband, father, and baseball coach. He has established himself in a good life, earning a good reputation among the people in his town. When he is rediscovered at a funeral for his mother, even though he is incognito, people begin showing up, and James's perfect world comes crashing down. How can he safe his own life, as wll as the lives of his wife Lisa (Anabella Sciorra) and daughter Stacy (Cait Gentile)?

his suspensful drama, though it plays like a television movie of the week, is well-written and well-acted. Bakula, as James Stockton, plays the perfect family man, who happened to come from a troubling past. This is a different kind of role for him, as we are used to seeing him as the "Average" hero. The performances of the cast are all around good.

This is an all-around good movie, with enough suspense to keep the audience entertained. If you like movies that will make you think, enjoy a good thrill, or like Scott Bakula, then this is the perfect film for you.

So it's Sunday evening and I had nothing better to do... But I was happily surprised by this movie. Scott Bakula undoubtedly makes the movie, but the plot's also not too shabby. It's twisty enough to hold your attention, but straight forward enough to not be too taxing on the old brain cells. Some of the acting is, admittedly, a bit wooden. And I'm not entirely sure who did kill the one guy half way through the film, or why. And why does his wife looks so happy at the end? Something amiss there, I'm sure. Maybe there were going to make a spin-off film about how she did away with him. But still, very pleasing Sunday evening viewing. And now it's time for bed.

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.

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.