La fin du rêve

This just released on TV gave the viewers a treat in the performances and script. A mystery, although it's pretty obvious as to what will happen from the beginning. In fact in the promos of the film you sort of know what's ahead. The two Mr. Kissels are played by Anson Mount and John Stamos. Like the good and bad brothers. Cain and Able. One tries to compete with the other in life, love and happiness. First one gets married then the other. But the wives are reversed in good and bad. Anson marries a witch, played by the not so attractive Robin Tunney, who is out for all she can get. You do wonder why this nice looking guy would not only fall for the likes of Tunney, but why he would put up with her. Most guys would have dropped her fast. She looked like Dracula's daughter. Then Stamos married a beauty who is all for him and he screws up all he way.

You put these four together and sooner or later it all falls apart. I felt bad for Anson and the gal who played the other wife, don't know her name. Stamos and Tunney earned their fates.

Both Stamos and Mount did good jobs. A big departure for Stamos who usually plays the nice guy. Mount is new to me and should go far in his career. Tunney, you want to forget. Bad casting and not that pretty to look at.

Some very good individual scenes here, and an excellent performance from John Stamos (not so with Robin...who is just terribly miscast in this one)....however the whole is not as good as it's individual parts. Based on a true story, I had seen several documentaries about this really amazing case (Two brothers on separate Continent's are both murdered). Those documentaries are extremely fulfilling. This TV drama only touches on the highlights of the tragedies. Unfortunately, the wealth of material that was available to the writer wasn't used properly. Yes, as I've said, some VERY good, and well researched scenes. However, this TV movie basically only has acted sections of what really happened. Unfortunately, if you don't know enough about the case itself....this film won't make too much sense. But what is there is good....it's just not enough. Investigate the case before you see the film, and I'm sure you will agree.

Lifetime Television's "The Two Mr. Kissels," based on the true story of two murdered brothers, stars John Stamos as Andrew Kissel, Anson Mount as Robert Kissel, and Robin Tunney as Robert's wife, Nancy. Somehow, a fascinating story was rendered fairly uninteresting by the script. With better writing, this might have been a compelling, old-fashioned two-parter, as there is certainly enough material out there.

The Kissel brothers were wealthy and seemingly successful young men - Robert was a brilliant businessman whose career had an upward trajectory. Unfortunately, he married a narcissistic money-grubber (Tunney) who falls for a cable guy (in real life a stereo repairman) and decides she's better off with all of the cash and no husband. Andrew could have been a successful entrepreneur, but he needed to come up to par with his brother and make a big splash. He becomes a cocaine-addicted, womanizing con artist, married to a successful woman who truly loves him and turns a blind eye to his shady deals and late nights.

The murders of both men are handled well, but one never gets a strong sense of the relationship between the two brothers or any handle on the character of Robert. John Stamos does a good job with the material, but the best role in the film belongs to Robin Tunney as Nancy. She's excellent. It's really the only fleshed out part in the film.

There was a good deal more that went on in this real-life saga, including in court. In the end, I felt that the script let down what should have been a fascinating story.

Firstly, I know about the subject matter. It is based on a true story and many of the main characters are real people (this is a docudrama) and some have different names. The characters resemble the actual people but look nothing like the real people involved and some of the facts are altered or left out. I'm not sure if this is because of potential liability or threatened legal action or the producers only used the actual events as a jumping-off point and didn't think they were doing a documentary, so accuracy was not tantamount. Also, the time line was cleaned up and made easier to understand because there were other issues that were not included (Nancy's father planned on taking care of Robert's kids and then her brother wanted to care for them, etc.) so if you're watching this thinking this is all the way it was or were not familiar with the actual events, please understand there is a lot more information that was not included or was altered, so the movie is not accurate. The producers and the writer work around this by calling the movie a docudrama, which means as long as it has some truth to it, then that's okay but some details were basically mis-represented in any event.

Although the story is based on an actual events and court records of the two rich and famous brothers respective demise Mrs. Shullivan and I were disappointed in the films content mainly because there seemed to be no depth of character to any of the four key actors who played Robert and Andrew Kissel and their respective wives. Andrew Kissel was played by John Stamos, his wife Hayley was played by Gretchen Egolf, Anson Mount played Robert Kissel and Robin Tunney played his murderous wife Nancy.

Anson Mount who played Robert Kissel seemed to just read his lines off a script and we could not relate to his character what so ever. We have watched his latter work as the rough and tough railway foreman in the hit TV series Hell On Wheels so we know he has some good acting chops. Unfortunately his character portrayal of Robert Kissel was so shallow that the viewing audience has a hard time feeling any empathy for the good lucking guys imminent fate that awaited him. As for Rober Kissel's wife Nancy played by Robin Tunney, the films director, Ed Bianchi seemed hell bent on parading Ms. Tunney in her bra and panties in almost every second scene she was in and I can't for the life of me figure out what Bianchi was attempting to achieve. This was supposed to be a story based on actual events that lead to the death of the Two Mr. Kissels as the movie title represents. The cheap flashing of a half naked Nancy Kissel (who in real life is a homely looking Mrs. Kissel) just cheapened what could have had the makings of a true life killer thriller.

The film provided zero coverage of neither of the actual court trials of the murderers of the brothers the Two Mr. Kissels as part of the movie content. Instead the film focused mainly on two characters, the first being the overbearing Nancy Kissel and the senseless murder of her husband Robert. The second story focused on fraudster Andrew Kissel who was found murdered as he sat in a chair with his hands and feet bound, with his head covered with a sack, and with 27 stab wounds. All events were actual facts but we found the film so shallow that it would have been much more interesting a story if it was narrated by Bill Kurtis of the TV series Cold Case fame.

I have a hard time crediting the film with anything higher than a 4 out of 10 rating. I would give this film a pass.