Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial In Italy/At Risk/Bringing Ashley Home/Cornwell’s The Front/Reviving Ophelia/Taken From Home: The Tiffany Rubin Story (Lifetime/A&E DVDs)
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: D (Knox: C-) Telefilms: D (Knox: C-)
In six
new DVD releases of their telefilms, The Lifetime Network continues to issue
evidence why they are neck in neck with The Hallmark Channel as the worst cable
network of all time…
You would
think Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial In
Italy might be watchable, but it is a very bad, corny, cynical and
opportunistic mess with Hayden Panettiere in the title role of a young lady
whose trial is still not totally finished accused of a murder she insists she
did not commit and we are still not certain what happened. Not even Marcia Gay Harden can save this
wreck from failure in what is a premature cash-in on a serious subject. Sad and the documentary on the actual case
included is amazingly just as weak and dated upon arrival.
At Risk (2009) is one of two lame
adaptations of Patricia Cornwell novel thrillers with Daniel Sunjata as Win
Garano we are covering here, a Massachusetts State Policeman on the rise
reopening a 20 year old cold case that may become hotter than anyone
expects. However, even Annie MacDowell
cannot heat up this waste of time. There
are no extras.
Bringing Ashley Home is as bad with the title
character (Jennifer Morrison) being the irresponsible younger sister who
disappears, so her older sister Libba (A.J. Cook) having to look for her. You think of the cliché, it is here. Guess the ending! Patricia Richardson also stars and there are
no extras.
Cornwell’s The Front (2009) brings back Sunjata and
MacDowell trying to solve the murder of a blind woman that may or may not be
that of the infamous Boston Strangler in what is a 40-year-old crime. It is also a bore. There are no extras.
Reviving Ophelia (2010) has Jane Kaczmarek in this
tale of two single women with daughters in trouble. One acts out, the other is in an abusive
relationship she cannot get out of. This
manages to trivialize any of the serious subjects it covers by oversimplifying
them best of all, any solution that involves even the simplest idea of a
feminist discourse is purposely ignored, making this more of a joke and
borderline offensive. There are no
extras.
Finally
we have the child abduction drama Taken
From Home: The Tiffany Rubin Story (2010) with Taraji P. Henson as a mother
who has to track down her son after her ex-husband who takes him to South
Korea! This is the worst, dumbest, most
unconvincing (from the writing to the acting and the lack of intensity in
particular) I have ever seen from such a story and it too trivializes its
subject. There are no extras.
The 1.33
X 1 and 1.78 X 1 letterboxed or anamorphically enhanced images across the six
DVDs are soft, poor and often awful with poor color and motion blur throughout,
while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is barley so across the board with lame
sonics and recording that is not always consistent and barely professional.
- Nicholas Sheffo
