I Accuse

To deal with some of the comments made by others, this is a film made for Canadian television. As such it is well made, but does not have the fanciest production values. It does a good job of capturing the attitudes and social mores of a small town on the Canadian prairie and how the citizens would react when confronted with something they don't want to believe.

This is the first film where the former Olympic athlete and model Estella Warren is given the chance to carry a film by herself and she does an excellent job, making me wish that she would spend more time making films in Canada and less time in Hollywood. where I don't think she is taken seriously enough as an actress.

Basically the film explores how society reacts when a woman from a blue collar background (Warren) accuses a prominent small town doctor (Hannah) of rape. On a larger scale it is also an exploration of problems involved in many rape cases, where the accused is a prominent individual, and the victim becomes not only a victim of her attacker, but of society as a whole.

Warren makes the character believable. She actually underplays the emotional aspects, which makes her more believable and anchors the film in reality. As her accused attacker Hannah does a good job of playing outraged and smarmy. His attitude, especially during some of the final scenes in court are both hard to take and frightening in their arrogance.

Overall this film does a good job of exploring issues which society does not like to face and builds suspense and emotional power without resorting to the overdone histrionics that might be expected from American television or Hollywood's dealing with such an explosive issue.

Enjoyed the movie on Movie network Sunday Nov 30/03. Felt that the flashback scenes to the rape was shown too many times. Once would have been enough. the point was made. Estella Warren did a good job in her role. Reminded me of an Erin Brockovich type character but of course in a different vain.

Unfortunately, I first saw the episode in tv as an episode of Forensic Files, one of the best stories in fact (Season 6 episode 18 calles Bad Blood). I say unfortunately because I was expecting the movie to be at least as intense as the episode on tv but it wasn't at all. Besides the fact that they don't even tell the whole story in the movie. The doctor raped his step daughter as well and the real Kimberly was much more likable. I feel like they wasted the opportunity to tell an incredible story.

I like watching movies. I go to the local video shop and see titles that might interest me. I come back home, before I rent, and come on to IMDb and read reviews to, hopefully, get a true reflection of the movie. If ever I have been given a bad reflection, it is with this film. This is a low budget T.V. movie. Nothing more, nothing less. Not a bad movie. But I could have waited until it was shown mainstream. I hope it was very loosely based on a true story, because the credibility was just not there. I would hasten to add that I hate reviews that go on about the cinematography etc. etc. etc. All I want to know is "did you enjoy the movie". My final comment is, watchable movie, not completely a waste of time, but wait till it's on television, and catch it, or don't. You won't miss too much.

The script was simplistic and predicable. The characters are stereo typical. The acting was flat and had very little depth. Although it is based on a true event the story still needed some work There was no clear reason for the ending, as it was not explained at all why it ended as it did.