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This made-for-TV mystery/thriller would be relentlessly silly even without the Magical Omniscient Police Scanner. But with it, "Nightwaves" becomes golden camp.

Ungracefully aging Sherilyn Fenn is a widow who overhears what she thinks is a murder on her dead husband's police scanner, then begins to doubt what she heard once her testimony helps indict a seemingly innocent man.

Fenn, who those of us old enough to remember "Twin Peaks" also remember that little trick she did with her tongue and a maraschino cherry stem, is supposed to be the star here, despite her dowdy housewife looks and the worst pageboy haircut since Cathy Rigby's "Peter Pan."

But in this show she gets totally upstaged by her dead husband's amazing computer. Its LCD monitor is touch-screen in no way that makes sense. Moreover, its police scanner software can somehow pick up cell phone and even landline conversations out of thin air.

Of course, Fenn's character tunes in at exactly the right times to hear things like death threats and murders, all taking place in crystal clarity over these massive speakers that look like "Star Wars" background droids in the jawa van.

And yet, despite this incredible, nonexistent-in-the-real-world technology, it's all wired into an old-school cassette deck, on which she records these conversations. Seriously, does your car even have a cassette deck anymore? Do your kids know what a cassette used to be?

Fenn, who's become every other '80s actress who may as well be Ally Sheedy, does just as good a job here as Ally Sheedy would, and that's not a compliment.

No one else you've ever heard of is in this movie, and none of them you'll ever probably hear of again.

The ending is stupid.

In Boston, Shelby Naylor (Sherilyn Fenn) is a rising writer at her magazine. Her husband likes to spend his spare time listening to the police scanner. Business partner Tom Williams is their friend. The couple gets into a car accident. Her husband is killed and she has extensive physical therapy. Someone breaks into her home. The cop suggests listening to the police scanner which has a tendency of picking up other transmissions. She records the scanner like her husband used to do and may have recorded damning evidence in a murder.

The premise is sorta like Rear Window. Of course, this is nowhere near that classic. Why the cop would suggest eavesdropping on the police scanner is beyond me. It would be more tense if her activity is illegal and hidden. After all, she is listening in on private transmissions. It would heighten the danger and that's what these thrillers need. Every bit of danger needs to be elevated. She should be more disabled for more danger. The cinematography is strictly TV movie level. It's all very flat. Any hope of an intense thriller is drained away. There is no tension in this wannabe thriller.

This is basically a female version of "Rear Window". Sherilyn Fenn stars as Shelby, who loses her husband in a car accident. After his death, she copes by listening to a police scanner. She then overhears a couple arguing. Shelby thinks a innocent woman is dead and following her. Of course nobody believes her. "Nightwaves" is very heavy with clichés. Nothing original happens here. There's one scene where it's supposed to be raining outside and you don't see any rain at all, You hear sound effects. Sherilyn Fenn is okay in this, but she is above TV movie of the week material.

The box art is also very misleading. This is not a "Red Shoe Diaries"-type movie.

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As the first review said, a total waste of time. Why would anyone make this film, terrible acting and a totally ridiculous plot.

This movie is just a "high-tech" version of Alfred Hitchcock's classic movie, Rear Window. But instead of a man seeing a murder being committed while looking through a telescope, Shelby Naylor (played by Sherilyn Fenn) while using her dead husband's radio scanner hears a husband and wife fighting with each other over a cell phone, and of course, shortly thereafter the woman is found dead. And like Jimmy Stewart in the classic film, Naylor's life is in danger after she reports what she hears to the police.

If this wasn't such a recycled plot, the movie might have been much better as Sherilyn Fenn is a talented actress. But I couldn't give this movie more than a 5 out ten stars for only being so-so. With such a basic plot you pretty much know what's going to happen, so it becomes how well the actors do their jobs along the way, which is nothing spectacular.