Grade: C

I’ve never read this book before, but tonight, as I was flipping through the channels— ’cause FUCKING HOUSE wasn’t on for some reason —I found the TV version of this book on Lifetime (duh). Since I didn’t have the benefit of knowing who the good guy or the bad guy was, I was genuinely afraid for the heroine, Reena Hale, because some crazy dude is setting her boyfriends on fire and I was suspicious of everyone as the psycho. At one point, I was convinced that the pyro was Reena herself ’cause what a tweeest! but hell-o! She’s the spunky red-haired heroine! She can’t be the bad guy. Unless she had a doppleganger, I guess, and I wasn’t ready to rule that out. You can’t ever tell with these Lifetime movies, man.

The best part of this movie? Scott Bakula! Dude, don’t even get me started on my Sam Beckett love. It’s intense, all-consuming, and kind of creepy. At one point, I was convinced he was the killer, but NO WAY, MAN! He’s Sam Beckett! […and so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.] He never made it home! *sobs*

Spot La Nora: In one of the MANY flashback scenes, the Hale family is watching their family restaurant go up in flames and when the camera pans to the crowd, we see Ms. Roberts, looking on, all concerned and stuff. The camera was on her for like… two seconds. I was so excited that I started shrieking, but Tim was out with his homies, and I had no one to share it with. *sad face*

Oh, spoilers and shit.

Plot According to Amazon: Eleven-year-old Reena Hale, watching her family’s restaurant go up in flames, decides to become an arson investigator. The fire shapes another child’s destiny, too, as Joey Pastorelli sees his father go to prison for setting the blaze. Reena’s close-knit Italian family rebuilds; Reena grows up and completes police and firefighter training. Despite inheriting her mother’s good looks, Reena proves unlucky in love, mainly because her beaux tend to die in fires, but her fortunes look up after she meets hunky carpenter Bo Goodnight. Bo gets along with Reena’s family, friends and co-workers, and handles the demands of her career with patient humor, so nothing stands in their way—except an obsessed, pyromaniac stalker determined to kill any man Reena loves.

Plot as I Saw it: I was working while I was watching it, so forgive me if I get some details wrong. In the beginning of the movie, somebody sets Reena Hale’s family restaurant on fire and everyone’s all devastated and stuff and Reena grows up, determined to be an arson investigator. In some flashback scenes, there’s a guy named Joey Pastorelli and I think his son tries to rape Reena, but it’s Joey who is hauled off to the pokey. And he calls her “you nosy little bitch!” and vows revenge. Now Reena’s in college and she’s in love with a guy named Josh and they have sex and Reena goes home to her parents’ house and her parents want to see Josh for dinner, but OH NOES, someone sets Josh on fire while he’s lying in the bed in which he deflowered Reena. Bye Josh!

Flash-forward and Reena is now dating some guy named Hugh and they’re in love. Some girl named Gina brings Reena shoes and tells her Hugh is going to propose to her (WAY TO RUIN THE SURPRISE, ASSHOLE!). We see Hugh buying some flowers and a guy with a creepy voice is telling him that the flowers he’s buying are ugly and Hugh is walking away and then he blows up. I wasn’t paying attention, so I’m not sure how it happened. He is rushed to the hospital and Reena arrives, babbling to Sam Beckett about some fire, and Sam Beckett is all Reena Reena Listen To Me and she won’t shut up and he shakes her and says Reena You dummy It was Hugh! And Reena’s all Me What? And Sam Beckett turns her around and OH NOES Hugh is dead. Reena’s all NOOOOOO DAMN YOU CRAZY STALKER GUY and the FBI’s there accusing Reena of tampering with evidence and giving her accusatory eyes and Sam Beckett’s all shut up ugly pockmarked mustachioed man (could he have looked more villainous?) her fiance just died and he died with the engagement ring clutched in his fist! That’s love, man! That’s love you won’t understand, Mr. Eff Bee Eye Man. But yeah, then he goes away all chagrined and stuff and Reena’s screaming after him “I’m going to investigate anyway! Damn you and your bylaws and jurismyfuckingdiction!”

And then Reena is moving into this cute house and she’s too busy investigating the arsons to move in so her mom and friend move in for her, and oh, the FBI isn’t giving her the stink eye anymore. She goes to her new backyard and there’s this overly enthusiastic handsome carpenter man named Bo Goodnight who’s all Oh I’ve Been In Love With You Since That One Time I Saw You In That College Party and I was All Drunk and Stuff! And Reena’s all freaked out by him, but turned on at the same time and tells him she’s going to go inside the house, but has the secret smile of luuuuuuurve. And then we get some shenanigans of Reena watching Bo doing carpenter stuff shirtless and that’s how about it for their courtship. All of a sudden, they’re talking about moving in together, they’re having family dinners, and we’ve got a Montage! Montage! Montage! Of Falling In Love! But OH NOES! Creepy Voice Guy is leaving obscene messages on Reena’s voicemail about setting her family and her boyfriend on fire and Reena’s all Not This Time Fucker! I AM TIRED OF BEING VICTIMIZED BY YOUR SHENANIGANS! Not that I could tell this from looking at the Actress playing Reena ’cause I swear to God, she’s a bad-Botox victim and can now only move her nostrils and her lips. Poor girl. But I’m really good at reading subtext, so no problem.

The Heroine: If you’re as obsessed with Lifetime as I am, you’re probably aware of the Woman in Peril plotline (the woman is being stalked, nobody believes her, she gets seriously attacked by the psycho, she recovers, she fights the psycho on her own, the psycho is revealed to be THE ONLY MAN SHE’S EVER LOVED). The heroine here is supposed to be some smart, sharp arson investigator or something, but I didn’t buy it. The actress who plays her (Alicia Witt) is TERRIBLE and she’s one of those girly-girl types that I wanted to strangle with her stupid red hair. She wiggles her nose, purses her lips, but no matter what she’s supposed to be feeling, her facial expression stays the same. She’s got these pretty eyes that always seem to be on the brink of tears whether she’s happy or outraged. Oh, and her voice! She has this strange, stilted inflection that I couldn’t figure out where she was supposed to be from. Her family is this big crazy Italian bunch, but she’s oddly reserved and distant like she’s the red-headed (literally) step-child. From what I gathered, she’s supposed to have a passion for fire and a weird affinity for it, but Witt seriously can’t act her way out of a paperbag, and her vocal delivery is the same whether she’s talking about the weather or screaming at the bad guy to stop or she’ll shoot. Speaking of which, there’s a scene where she’s chasing after a suspect and the awkward way she was holding the gun made me laugh out loud. I was yelling at the screen, “BOTH HANDS, DUMBASS! YOU’RE GOING TO DROP THAT THING!” I swear to God, she was holding that thing like a teacup at a tea party.

The Hero: I don’t know if we can really call this guy the hero–I’m more comfortable calling him the Love Interest. I swear to God, because he’s so weird and awkward and yet strangely intense, I was convinced he was the Psycho Killer Guy. This is a Lifetime Movie after all and I’ve never seen one where a hot, too-perfect-to-be-true guy comes in at more than the halfway mark and doesn’t turn out to be the killer or an accomplice to the killer. The actor, Matthew Settle, is blandly good-looking, but has an underlying menace to him that made me suspicious of him, but it could be that the guy is just a bad actor and didn’t know how to play I’m Just a Good Guy Who Know How To Fix Shit and Cook Stuff without seeming like an overly enthusiastic creep. Dude had maybe… twenty lines at most, but there’s a really hilarious scene at the end where he tries to save Reena from the bad guy and ends up getting both of his legs on fire and he’s all Put it Out Ouch It Hurts So Bad, meanwhile Reena’s fighting the psycho by herself. I do seem to recall that he has very nice abs, though. That’s all that matters, right?

O h My Word: This was a pretty entertaining movie to watch because the acting was pretty bad and it was all oh so melodramatic that I couldn’t help but laugh my butt off (but that’s pretty much a requirement for a TV movie). There was an alarming amount of flashbacks, which seemed to be important because every time it happened, Reena would pick up on something else in the memory. For a supposed kickass arson chick, she took an awful long time to figure out who the killer was, though I don’t really blame her because I was suspicious of everyone. Seriously, I always get carried away when I’m watching Lifetime Movies that I suspect even the dog. The romance between Bo and Reena was a little undercooked, but Bo’s not really an important character in the grand scheme of things because this is really about Reena being able to get past her issues and solving this crime that’s very close to home and hearth. I just wish that a better actress had been chosen to play Reena because I think there might have been nuances and shit that I missed because chick was pretty much a lifeless piece of turkey jerky and couldn’t convey the pain and rage Reena might have been feeling. I was a little disappointed that nothing came out of Reena’s supposed affinity with fire or her weird connection with the killer. That could be, though, because this movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be My Big Wacky Italian Family or Woman in Peril Because A Crazy Psycho Keeps Setting her Boyfriends on Fire. The many, many flashbacks also made the film oddly disjointed and because the director kept showing the same shit over and over again, I got desensitized to it after a while. Anyway, it’s an okay way to spend a couple of hours, so if it’s on Lifetime, y’all should sit down and watch it.

Stay Tuned for the next installment in Nora Roberts Does Lifetime, which I believe is Carolina Moon. Woo-h0o!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 12:18 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.