Lifetime network’s original movies are completely different Showtime Films and Hallmark’s films. Rather than offering its viewers” family friendly” picture type romantic comedy Lifetime movies are usually dramatic and feature themselves with infidelity, stalkers or murders, boasting that the movie is “Ripped from the Headlines”. They sometimes have a name star but they do not have a roster of regulars like Hallmark does. Amy Smart, Matthew Davis, Billy Zane and Ne Yo have all gotten in trouble for endorsing the film during its promotional phase. For some reason, one would expect the network to have overspent its budget to recruit the aforementioned big names. The picture was a real acquisition, though. The working name of the film was actually Blunt and it was probably made with the intention of being streamed on Netflix or Hulu. It’s understandable why you will not know why after viewing the movie.
There’s not much of a storyline here, but at least I get to follow Dawn Van Brocklin (Smart) a single mom who has started leasing her home to strangers. She leases the hell out of her so called ‘The Chalet in the Country’ home in the countryside in order to make a living for herself and her son, Charlie, and at the same time, pursue her ambition of becoming an artist, any day now waiting for her moment to shine. Her former spouse Matt (Davis) does not take very well the fact that she is renting the measuring device, arguing with Dawn that he will apply for the full custody of Charlie, due to an incident that he describes as ‘dangerous’ at the house with one of her renters (if only he knew). All these details are narrated in the form of flashbacks because at the beginning of the film, Dawn is handcuffed to her beds and is perplexed about who could have hit her head with a rock and caused this scene.
Was it the Russian woman, who was said to have turned the house into her ‘base’ for rogues as a prostitution ring? Was it the guy who had rented the house as a retreat for himself and his homosexual partner who then went on to say that he was almost discovered by his wife and that she was to blame for all this because she failed to locate him? Or was it the swinger with a wife who had a hot girlfriend and all three played out the role play of renting the house and then invited Dawn to take part in belly dancing? Or was it her agent turning against her to have her eliminated and then enjoy the benefits of her being dead and selling all her artworks? Or was it her former spouse, who never knew that there was a phone call contacting him and stating that her wife was going to fight for custody, and the person speaking ordered him to come in a few moments and that it was the right time for Plan B? No one has any idea because the person behind this story does not fit the picture even the slightest.
Anna Elizabeth James seems to have had a breakout hit with the 2021 movie Deadly Illusions, but professional scrutiny tell a different story. Now, I give James credit as a woman who has managed to get her films done in the roughneck world of filmmaking, but how many awful remakes are going to be made before the enjoyment of James’ films is lost entirely. James’ bio states she has an MFA from USC’s School of cinematic arts but I have to raise an eyebrow at this point because there is no real writing in the movie at all. I try to understand and be respectful of the other artist’s works, but Held Hostage In My House is a movie that should be used as a torture device. There are also indie films that are exceptionally good and accomplished in their own right and are unsuccessful in making a profit and I do not see it right that someone who has made nothing but flops continues to prosper. Life is unfair and it is what it is. In this case, however, I cannot say that the direction is dreadful it is certainly above the level of some other action movies where the style was the last thing the director cared about.
The angles are okay and the lighting is done right but other than a few nauseating cuts, there isn’t something that stands out. However, the writing seems to suggest James has never seen a mystery thriller, despite her other movies appearing to be cut from the same cloth. But naturally, every mystery features a fork in the road that distracts the audience from the actual bad guy, yet this film has so many anglers to feed a family of twelve, and the reveal comes out from left field, and you are screaming in the television and figuring out what the hell was Matt’s Plan B.
The barely existent plot has some gross weaknesses like why, if you’ve gone to the trouble of kidnapping and tracking someone down and holding them hostage, then hung up on them, leaving them to starve (and that Dawn, after several days alone with no sheets on the bed, is without the comfort of soiling it in any practical sense which might be said for fans of realist drama to overlook). And then there are the fire ants and the inexplicable presence of two slices of peach pie on the table in the bedroom of Dawn. Sure, she bakes a few pies before she gets captured but there’s no reason for her to take them with her to the bedroom and the fire ants to consume (they can readily come and how, exactly, did they get in?) and probably climb onto Dawn. (One or two manage to do so at last and, contrary to what James intends, he is not the threat that we are meant to believe.) How everything works in the script is ghastly, sloppy, but at least the proper ‘Dawn’s Paintings’ was credited as the creative.
The interview casts are well aware of the rich thanks to the credits and earn money from. One can say only one nice thing about Amy Smart in this movie, who, after all, may have been tired playing naive mothers (like in Stargirl) and has put in a star performance by making the audience sympathize with the character of Dawn and one feels satisfied when the tables are turned, even if the direction may make little sense, in the last scene. Matt Davis seems to convincingly pass as the ‘responsible one’, whereas Greer Grammar portrays her character so well that one is not quite sure which of the Plans A or B she is connected to and even later in the picture she has a scene that has a ring of her being in on it however sadly whoever did the squeezed blush on clownish make up for that scene was an utter disgrace to fantasy. Harrison Fox is actually a decent child actor and you feel his helplessness how he is forced to go to a camping trip with his dad while obviously trying to reach his mom who never answers.
Billy Zane, with his fright wig, may have offered some comedic relief in the courtroom, but it was nowhere near the level required to render Held Hostage In My House viewable.
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