Ah, another former “Lifetime” movie makes it to the Landfill! When the Lifetime Network first began, many of the movies they ran (both those they acquired from other sources and ultimately those produced expressly for their channel) featured sympathetic female protagonists beleaguered by the horrible men in their lives – mostly their cheating husbands who usually planned to kill them so they could spend the insurance money on their mistresses. As time went on, however, the station (perhaps unknowingly) often took the “embattled-turned-empowered woman” theme to the opposite extreme, giving us characters of such sheer hysterics that one was reminded of latter-day Bette Davis movies. I’ve never seen “Accidental Witness,” but this seems like it could fall close to what I describe, with an “intensity” so forced that it lapses unwittingly into unintentional parody, setting some viewers to giggle and guffaw at the proceedings.
In this one, a murderer is after the attorney that he thinks “accidentally witnessed” one of his killings. As someone close to me pointed out, “isn’t everyone an 'accidental' witness?” I reminded them that literal accuracy is not a hallmark of Late Nite Landfill films.
This one stars Natasha Wagner. You remember her – the stepdaughter of the oft-mentioned (at least here anyway) Robert Wagner, she was in “Sol Goode,” which we covered a few weeks ago and which ABC yanked in favor of a bad Elvis impersonator movie instead. Perhaps this weekend Natasha will get a chance to display her wares as one of the queens of Late Nite Landfill fare – just take a gander at her imdb.com filmography and you’ll see what I mean. It’s littered with direct-to-DVD and cable TV movie fare.
The supporting cast is made up of the usual mix of TV, soap opera, and Canada film industry actors. A common bond among them seems to be appearances on the top crime drama shows like the various Law & Order and CSI series, as well as syndicated sci-fi shows and Canadian programs.
Speaking of sci-fi, the director, Kristoffer Tabori seems to have quite the side-career going for himself as a voice-over artist in such fantastical fare as the animated series, “Avatar: the Last Airbender;” and video games of “Battlestar Galactica” and “Star Wars.” Too bad “Accidental Witness” doesn’t look quite so “out of this world” as those space operas!
View the trailer here:
Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, March 16th at 11:35 PM – if you dare!
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2 comments:
Kris is a friend of mine, began as an actor and switched to directing. His father was a director, too - one of my favorite directors, Don Siegel. He made this little film you may have heard of called DIRTY HARRY... and many other great films.
- Bill
Thank you Bill. Someone close to me mentioned the Dirty Harry-helming Siegel being Kris's father as well. In addition to directing and voice-overs, Kris also has some notable acting credits. Perhaps one of the more truly gifted film folks we've featured so far!
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