Apparently Sonny Grosso bought the rights to all of these Mary Higgins Clark novels. Was her agent afraid they wouldn't get another offer? Sonny produced some wonderful series from Canada in the '80s, but the boring filming of these stories leaves a lot to be desired. All the money seems to go for the female star, and that's it. He certainly doesn't splurge for top writers or directors.
As a result, even though the stories themselves are intriguing, the end result of these films is always the same: slow and so what.
"Haven't We Met Before?" is one of the better Higgins Clark stories and could have been developed in a richer way. In this one, a man (Page Fletcher) believes the people he killed wronged him in a past life. He is caught while trying to murder Kate (Nicolette Sheridan), whom he believes was Emily in a past life, who killed her husband and let him be hanged for it.
This story should have been riveting. It wasn't. It did, however, keep me interested due to the plot. And as usual, I sort of figured it out. Why? Because there's something about the way these stories are set up where there's a subtle giveaway. I can't figure out what it is, I don't know if it's the way the scenes are directed or what, but I always know.
Again, because of Mary Higgins Clark and not anything else, I like watching these filmed novels. Maybe it's a sense of comfort that I know what I'm going to get. Bad pacing, okay acting from Canadian actors I've never seen before, a pretty and familiar star, a good story, and Sonny Grosso's trademark suspense music.
