generic TV thriller
Slow, moody and repressed, Dangerous Lies is the newest feature film offering from Netflix, a streaming service with a very weak track record when it comes to original content, not withstanding a couple successful television shows and documentaries.
Directed by Michael Scott and penned by David Golden, both of whose resumes mostly include Hallmark and Lifetime television movies, the film looks and plays like a fairly generic example of those aforementioned television productions.
The plot starts out fairly simply, before devolving into a convoluted mess. Katie (Camilla Mendes of Riverdale fame), and her husband Adam (Jessie T. Usher) move into a large "Chicago" (though actually and clearly Vancouver) mansion when its owner Leonard (bizarrely, Elliot Gould) dies under suspicious circumstances and leaves everything to Katie. The police keep asking questions, and the young couple seem to have a dubious sense of morals.
Development leads to development and red herrings trip over red herrings before we realize the full truth a full 4 minutes before the movie ends. The fact that there are still unresolved plot holes when the credits roll don't seem to worry the filmmakers much.
The movie plays like a rather by the numbers mystery thriller. There is not much to say about the performances because there is not much performing going on. The wooding acting is at least tolerable in Camilla Mendes' case, a young lady who is very easy on the eyes, even though she is wearing approximately fifteen pounds of make up in every scene.
The dialogue is about what you would expect from something like this, exposition delivered in the most blunt and apparent way. The subtext, as Giles from Buffy would say, is mostly just...text.
In terms of the visuals, the film is competently shot, though the cinematographic choices are conservative and unoriginal. The colour grading is very obvious throughout the movie, perhaps an attempt to make the end product look closer to Riverdale, the audience of which are no doubt the same target as this film. There is a slight orange tint to the exterior shots which I suppose is supposed to suggest Chicago, though it obviously was filmed in Vancouver, as most Netflix productions are at this point.
Despite all this, I did find the movie vaguely compelling in a "what is the solution to this mystery" way, though the movie does a bad job of providing any clues to help an attentive audience follow the plot, preferring to instead reveal things with no set up or payoff. To each their own, I suppose.
Dangerous Lies clunks along like the bad but watchable Lifetime-esque movie it is. It does nothing that hasn't been done before several dozen times, some better and some worse, and leaves the viewer with a slightly unsatisfied feeling as of "oh, I guess that was it?". The lies that Dangerous Lies tell are mostly to the audience, but end up being ruefully not dangerous.
Directed by Michael Scott and penned by David Golden, both of whose resumes mostly include Hallmark and Lifetime television movies, the film looks and plays like a fairly generic example of those aforementioned television productions.
The plot starts out fairly simply, before devolving into a convoluted mess. Katie (Camilla Mendes of Riverdale fame), and her husband Adam (Jessie T. Usher) move into a large "Chicago" (though actually and clearly Vancouver) mansion when its owner Leonard (bizarrely, Elliot Gould) dies under suspicious circumstances and leaves everything to Katie. The police keep asking questions, and the young couple seem to have a dubious sense of morals.
Development leads to development and red herrings trip over red herrings before we realize the full truth a full 4 minutes before the movie ends. The fact that there are still unresolved plot holes when the credits roll don't seem to worry the filmmakers much.
The movie plays like a rather by the numbers mystery thriller. There is not much to say about the performances because there is not much performing going on. The wooding acting is at least tolerable in Camilla Mendes' case, a young lady who is very easy on the eyes, even though she is wearing approximately fifteen pounds of make up in every scene.
The dialogue is about what you would expect from something like this, exposition delivered in the most blunt and apparent way. The subtext, as Giles from Buffy would say, is mostly just...text.
In terms of the visuals, the film is competently shot, though the cinematographic choices are conservative and unoriginal. The colour grading is very obvious throughout the movie, perhaps an attempt to make the end product look closer to Riverdale, the audience of which are no doubt the same target as this film. There is a slight orange tint to the exterior shots which I suppose is supposed to suggest Chicago, though it obviously was filmed in Vancouver, as most Netflix productions are at this point.
Despite all this, I did find the movie vaguely compelling in a "what is the solution to this mystery" way, though the movie does a bad job of providing any clues to help an attentive audience follow the plot, preferring to instead reveal things with no set up or payoff. To each their own, I suppose.
Dangerous Lies clunks along like the bad but watchable Lifetime-esque movie it is. It does nothing that hasn't been done before several dozen times, some better and some worse, and leaves the viewer with a slightly unsatisfied feeling as of "oh, I guess that was it?". The lies that Dangerous Lies tell are mostly to the audience, but end up being ruefully not dangerous.
- PandoraProductions4
- Apr 30, 2020