Ricochet

Julie Benz is always eye candy...loved her in Dexter and she worked there. This is a made for TV movie from start to finish but cannot even compete with network TV, so TNT or Hallmark or... The lead actor is horrible. All these actors are familiar faces as supporting cast. This movie lets us all know how good leads actors are and why they get paid the big bucks. You get a star actor and run with that person as far as you can because there are not many of them around!

This is just bad...plays like an early 2000s drama before they perfected TV. Skip it unless Julie Benz is worth your time for a pretty face...

Ricochet, an adaptation of Sandra Brown's best selling novel of the same name, is part of TNT's new venture - creating made for TV original, crime movies. I have not read the book nor had I heard anything about it prior to watching therefore making this review truly just about the movie since I went into it blind with no expectations or knowledge of the plot.

The beginning of Ricochet is promising and not only held my attention but drew me right into the mystery. In the middle of the night, a judge's wife, played by Julie Benz, is in the kitchen of her home and hears a noise coming from inside the house. She grabs a gun stashed in a cabinet and walks towards the sound only to open a door, say 'Who the hell are you?' followed by gunshots. The police - more specifically partners Det. Hatcher (John Corbett) & Det. Bowen (Kelly Overton) arrive on the scene and find a man dead on the premises who appears to have been caught in the act of a home invasion/looking through property & was shot in self defense by the judge's wife, Elise Laird or so she says. The police immediately question Elise about the incident with her husband, Judge Laird, played by Gary Cole, by her side who was home at the time but upstairs.

Elise ends up contacting Det. Hatcher privately and proclaims that the dead man was sent to kill her by her husband but when asked what his motive would be, she is secretive and doesn't feel like she can tell him until she truly trusts him. Was the shooting self defense as she claims? Did the judge really hire someone to kill his wife? If so, why? Is Elise a cold blooded murderer? What does a local mobster named Savage have to do with everything? The movie presents a solid mystery as far as what is actually going on and why. I don't feel like the full truth surrounding what really happened was predictable or easily guessed from the start of the film.

However, what I did find predictable as well as very cheesy was any and all interaction between Det. Hatcher and Elise Laird. I found that I knew the camera shots the film would use as well as the looks they'd give one another before they even happened as the movie set up a romance between the cop and the female at the forefront of his investigation as he was anything but professional. Their scenes together were far from original or entertaining & I always seemed to know what would occur between them before it did. There is one scene where he comes home, turns on the lights and she had been sitting in the dark waiting for him - I saw that coming a mile away and I'm almost certain it was supposed to be a big twist/reveal for the audience only I never bought the lie the movie was trying to sell anyway so it wasn't. At times this felt more like a boy + girl 'steamy' drama than a true crime thriller namely in the 2nd hour where a full 15-20 minutes is actually dedicated to the two alone getting to know each other. That portion almost took me right out of the movie.

I also found Det. Hatcher to be extremely unlikable. He wasn't as charming or as funny as he seemed to think he was and thought his antics of keeping secrets and lying to his partner, Det. Bowen really frustrating. He'd be deceptive, get caught, act sorry and then 5 minutes later keep new information from her and while I understand that he was protective of Elise because of their 'special connection' I found his actions annoying. I don't know if this is a recurring character in Sandra Brown books or not but if he is, I personally would never read one with him in it.

Acting wise this film is not the strongest. Julie Benz was above and away the best here - I felt that she nailed the mysterious, sexy, secret holding, femme fatal character of Elise Laird perfectly but everyone else around her turned in mediocre performances with John Corbett bringing up the rear. In my opinion, he over acted a lot with poor line delivery which is odd since usually I think he's perfectly fine.

If you like mysteries with romance thrown in then you will probably thoroughly enjoy Ricochet because a gritty, crime thriller this is not. Had this adaptation run on Lifetime instead, I don't think anyone would have questioned it, it would have fit right in although I do feel like the actual mystery in Ricochet was a bit better than you usually see in original Lifetime films.

5/10 Solid watch. Started out very promising but the unoriginal male cop falls for the beautiful female he's investigating routine really downgraded the film once that dynamic got underway.

I normally hate any review I ever see with a score of 1/10, No film is that bad, BUT this is so bad its a disaster. The Lead character (Hatcher) is terrible! All over the place, with some of the worst acting you are likely to see. A chubby guy acting half tough bad man, half lady love machine. Just so bad!! And don't start with his partner. Even worse. The Film is the sort of CSI feel you see on TV every night. The way two detectives hound and disrespect a judge is ridiculous. The story is also way off anything nearly believable. By all means watch this 89 minute Cop flick but it is a howler and I m pretty sure you will agree.

Yes, it's lightweight, and it's a shame to waste John Corbett on a movie like this, but it's sit-on-the-couch-and-wait-out-COVID-19 time, so I watched the whole thing. Formulaic, yes. But at least there's no conflicted romance between the two detectives. The plot got kind of hard to follow - too many characters dropping in and out, and one that was already dead and never dropped in at all. There was menace, but it too was lightweight, though it rose to a crescendo at the end. Corbett's character, soured on romance, is self-protective; reassuringly, he has a warm work relationship with his partner. I like Corbett (check out Elvis has left the Building and My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Gary Cole's subdued his role, Julie Benz was adequate, and I'd like to see more of Kelly Overton when we're no longer watching semi-soothing movies

In this TV movie, detectives John Corbett and Kelly Overton get caught up in sex and scandal when a judge's trampy wife (Julie Benz) blackmails herself with the help of an old lover and then kills him.

The mystery rating of this movie is low; it's obvious from the get-go what is going on, but first we have to deal with the unresolved sexual tension between Corbett and Miss Overton as he has relations with Miss Benz and, given the dark lighting of this TCM movie, every other woman under the age of 40 he comes across. Based on a book by Sandra Brown, this movie does not make me think "gee, I'd like to read that" or see any of the principals in anything else. Misdirected by Nick Gomez, it has one of those brooding, low-bass scores by Chris Bacon.