Gold Digger Killer

I'm very picky about movies and am usually very critical of most LMN flicks - especially the endless dime-a-dozen "Wrong" and "Psycho" ones - but as I've written here before: Lifetime does true crime very well.

I had seen this case covered on Dateline a few years ago, so the names Celeste Beard and Tracey Tarleton rang a bell, and this movie stuck pretty close to the actual facts of the case. It was very well-acted by the entire cast, especially the front-and-center lead character played by Julie Benz. I remember her in the 'Dexter' series years ago playing a (fictional) character the exact opposite of Celeste.

Yet another riveting twisted true tale of greed, lust, and cold-blooded murder at which LMN seems to excel, for some reason...

Grade B - 8 out of 10.

Julie Benz is perfectly cast as the black widow Celeste Beard who marries (for money) a millionaire named Steven Beard a man 39 years older than herself. Celeste brings to the new marriage her twin teenage daughters and quickly goes through Steven Beards fortune spending foolishly and extravagantly.

They remained married for four (4) years until Steven was shot in the stomach in his own bed only to survive for another four (4) months before succumbing to a blood clot and dying. As the investigation into Steven Beard's death is unraveled it becomes quite clear his death was an attempted murder to which one of Celeste's roommates Tracey Tarlton, while both were residing in a mental health facility (Celeste was suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies) admits to shooting Steven Beard as she was madly in love with Celeste.

This made for TV film passes the smell test on the back of the believable acting of Julie Benz who can best be remembered as Rita Morgan the love interest of revenge serial killer Dexter (2006-2010).

Well worth watching. I give it a highly deserving 8 out of 10 IMDB rating.

It's an entertaining low budget movie, but I wouldn't watch it again.

As others have pointed out, the casting of actors is insane based upon their real life ages.

I wonder why the actress playing the part of "Becky", the male lead's daughter...looks at least the same age as him? It's utterly bizarre!

Julie Benz does a good job of playing such a scheming monster...totally different from her "sweet as sugar pie" role in the excellent drama "Dexter". She plays the part like a pantomime protagonist. In real life, no-one would ever get away with such sneaky, show-off behaviour but once you remember it's one of these "Lifetime" type movies, you know you're not going to see nuanced performances.

This is a docudrama. Julie Benz plays Christine Beard, the gold digger who marries multimillionaire Steven Beard, played by Eli Gabay.

I saw this case profiled on another network. I saw the real people in this case. I wish LMN had stuck to some of the details. Celeste's two girls are 17 year old twins. Roan Curtis (Kristina) is about twenty five years old at the time of this movie. Georgia Bradner (Jennifer) is about twenty seven years old. Neither of them look even close to seventeen years old. Surely they could have found actors who look close to the ages of the characters they play. Julie Benz at almost 50 years old, is almost believable in the role of a 32 year old. But her real age shows quite often. However, you can kind of understand that she would look older than her biological age. She's a woman who has gone through many men, many marriages and plenty of hard times.

If I erase these details from my mind, the movie is entertaining.