Julianne Phillips plays the daughter of a wealthy media tycoon who loses her husband in the opening minutes of the film. Grieco plays Eric who meets her while photographing for New Woman magazine. Such is the chemistry between the two that they quickly marry. On a remote honeymoon, Eric sends fake ransom notes to Rachel's father claiming the newly weds have been kidnapped. Meanwhile Rachel begins to suspect that her husband may not be all that he claims.
From the opening credit sequence you know you're watching a soap opera style TV movie and you pretty much prepare yourself to be under whelmed. The musical score all the way through is lame - either one type of romantic music or one type of dramatic music - neither very good.
The plot is poor apart from the moment that the kidnap plot is put in motion. It is actually quite clever if you don't know it's coming and makes you go "oh! that's quite clever!" - partly because I didn't expect any of it to be clever. But after that 5 minute section (early in the film) the rest is either predictable (the final "twists" are sooooo obvious) or just plain insulting to the audience. For example - Phillips is being closely chased through woods by Grieco, stumbles into a house and has plenty of time to fashion weapons out of household items before continuing the escape. Or how about - the investigator just has to ask people in shops for personal information like addresses, phone numbers etc of customers without showing ID or explaining why - and they just give it all over! Or how about the fact that Andy the computer guy seems to be able to access every system known to man through his home PC and at a touch of a few buttons! I won't go on but suffice to say it's not well plotted. In fact the script is poor itself, most lines are unconvincing, interactions between these new lovers are clunky and don't make you believe they even like each other!
However this may be mostly due to Grieco's rubbish evil villain style acting. He really spoils every line he says. In the beginning when playing the boyfriend/romantic role his deliver of dialogue is terrible. On their first date when Phillips asks what he would have done tonight if she hadn't called him he replies "I'd have found you. Believe me, I would have found you". Then at the end of the date says "I'm not going to ask you in, it's not because I don't want to, but because I do". PLEASE! on their first date having just met on the street! The lines are cheesy enough but Grieco delivers them like a big slime and sounds more like a stalker than a romantic - but yet the audience are meant to believe that Phillips just falls head-over-heals with this.
Once Grieco starts becoming suspicious we know it because he starts to do "evil-stares" into the distance as the dramatic music plays or he moves his eyebrows in a camp villain style way. The guy has no idea of subtlety or conveying his character gradually. This is soap opera acting at it's very worst. Julianne Phillips is actually quite good. Not great because nobody could do anything with this material, but she is quite convincing with the emotions she has to betray. Her only bad scenes are with her father, but again that's because the father's part is so badly written.
The end of the film can't come soon enough. Any interest, tension or excitement ends just after the kidnap plot is revealed (15 minutes in!) and then after that you can pretty much guess the next hour or so no problem.
I know TV movies aren't going to be as good dramas as bigger budget movies or big series but this is so dull and lifeless that it should aspire to be average. The only people who watch this should be acting students who want to learn from Grieco how NOT to act.
