Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Smart Story

The movie was a typical TV movie of the week. The actors did well with the script they had to work with but they really didn't have much to work with. I wouldn't rate the movie as high as I do if Chad Allen didn't look so cute in it. All in all I'd say it was a pretty average to slightly above average made for TV movie.

I enjoyed this movie and even bought it for my collection. Remember Billy was only fifteen years old and was experiencing his first sexual encounter. He was, understandably, easily manipulated by an "older" woman.

While I liked Helen Hunt's portrayal of Pam Smart, I still do not understand what was her reason for getting rid of her husband. According to the movie, Greg wasn't cruel or abusive to her, he seemed to love her very much, they lived in a lovely condo, and was supportive of her career decisions. His parents also seemed to love Pam like a daughter. Pam was crazy about Greg when he was a Van Halen look-alike but when he cut his hair and started to dress corporate (to work for an insurance company)did her feelings for him start to change then? She was very into heavy-metal but was she afraid that her "rocker" husband was transforming into Mr. Yuppie America?

I went ahead and bought a paperback about this case and hope to find out what has driven Pam to this extreme.

Based on a real-life incident, this film begins with a young woman named "Pamela Smart" (Helen Hunt) marrying her boyfriend "Greg Smart" (Hank Stratton) and then settling down to live a life happily ever after. At least, that is what Greg is led to believe as, less than a year later, Pamela becomes dissatisfied with their marriage and begins to have an affair with a young high school student named "William Flynn" (Chad Allen). Naturally, being much more experienced and mature than William, Pamela easily becomes the dominant figure in their relationship--to the point that she manages to convince him to kill Greg so that the two of them can be together. What Pamela fails to take into consideration, however, is that there are other high school students familiar with what is going on, and they are not willing to shoulder all of the blame by themselves. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an interesting movie which covered the main points of the story in a thoughtful and concise manner. The problem, however, is that the made-for-television format resulted in a rather generic characterization, which limited its overall impact. It needed more passion and suspense. Even so, I suppose it passed the time well enough, and I have rated this movie accordingly. Average.

Although I really do appreciate Helen Hunt as an actress in other films, I feel that she was a wrong choice for playing the part of Pamela Smart in this picture. Hunt is too soft for this role which one can see by watching Pamela Smart on the television show 'American Justice'. Also, the movie didn't go by all the facts, even though these things were small in nature - for example, Billy Flynn was not a blond guy, he has brown hair and certain things in the film were altered from the true facts that were reported on national television when Pamela Smart was on trial for the murder of her husband, Greg Smart. I think a lot of trouble with the picture had to do with the script - there just wasn't enough passion (not in the love sense, necessarily) in any of the scenes like when Smart (Hunt) is talking to Flynn (Chad Allen) about killing her husband, etc. They might as well have been talking about going and getting a cup of coffee or planning on going on a picnic together. I was thoroughly disappointed in this film and therefore rated it a 1 out of 10 because it didn't have any suspense about it at all and the acting was terrible as well.

This movie about what at the time was considered one of the most horrific murders ever because of the circumstances, was a waste of time. Helen Hunt was game in the role of Pam Smart, but everything else in this movie was so terrible. Chad Allen as her teen lover was an embarrassment, I couldn't see any reason why they would go head over heels for each other in real life by the way these two actors went pedestrianly about their way. A very big waste of time for anyone who watches this after reading this review.