Mary Higgins Clark writes mysteries that are entertaining, fast reads. She's no Agatha Christie, but she's prolific and when you pick up one of her books, you know what you're getting.
It's the same with TV versions of her many stories. Unfortunately, when you flip your remote to one of them, you also know what you're getting: a badly acted, badly directed, slow-moving story that is good for one thing - helping you get to sleep.
Alison Eastwood apparently decided to become an actress because she was born of two acting parents. Sorry, but that just isn't good enough. She inherited no talent and worse than that, no presence. Here she plays a young woman, Patricia Collins, whose double is murdered. The victim had her name and address in her pocket, but Patricia had never met her. This story is folded into the death of Patricia's father, whose body was never found. Mysterious occurrences point to him still being alive. When Patricia mentions her dad's name at a fertility clinic with whom her father did business, one of the scientists there becomes frightened and is later murdered. Patricia tries to unravel what's going on. It's not hard to figure out, because in these movies, the criminal's bad acting telegraphs his/her identity early on.
By far, the best performance in the film comes from Margot Kidder who comes off like Helen Mirren here, the rest of them are so bad. The always likable Kidder gives an energetic performance with honest emotion. Also, the final scenes of the film are very good.
With better casting and a quicker pace, this would have been an okay movie. Patricia as played by Eastwood doesn't come off as smart enough to figure this whole thing out.
Great to see Kidder, if you can stay awake long enough.
