Tired thriller is dangerously bad
Review Dangerous Lies (13+, 97 mins) Directed by Michael M Scott Reviewed by James Croot ★★
There was a time when femme fatales ruled the Hollywood roost. In the early 1990s, films like Single White Female, Basic Instinct, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Poison Ivy and Sliver – tales of women behaving badly – drew audiences to multiplexes in droves.
Perhaps a reaction to more than a decade of traditional stalker/ slasher films, or as a result of the success of Fatal Attraction, cinemagoers seem to revel in these flatmates, nannies, au pairs, psychologists and, um, book editors, using their positions for nefarious and sometimes deadly ends.
It was a sub-genre that died out almost as quickly as it appeared, thanks to too many D-grade, directto-video clunkers and the rise of more serious serial killer movies like Seven and Kiss the Girls, and parodies like Scream.
With its brooding main poster image, provocative title and the casting of the actress who plays Riverdale’s scheming socialite Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes),
I had high hopes Dangerous Lies might offer a return to those heady nights, circa 1992. Sadly, it was not to be.
This thriller, penned by Christmas TV movie specialist David Golden, is a ploddingly predictable trawl through old tropes, a mystery Scooby Doo would be embarrassed by, and a fatal lack of characters.
It all starts promisingly enough. Mendes is Chicago’s Smile Diner waitress Katie Franklin. She has put her own tertiary education ambitions on hold to help her husband Adam Kettner (Jessie T Usher) finish his temporary sociological theory studies. But one night, while the pair are canoodling in her car during one of her shifts, the place is robbed.
Adam eventually saves the day with a frying pan, but we quickly learn the pair have some rather acute financial troubles.
Cut to four months later and money is still too tight to mention. Adam is refusing to take a minimum wage job, forcing Katie to work as a carer for 88-year-old Leonard Wellesley (Elliott Gould).
An only child who never married, Leonard is smitten by Katie’s kindness and desperate to make a difference to her and her ‘‘young man’’. That means offering Adam work as a gardener and sneakily adding an extra 0 to her pay cheque.
So when Leonard winds up dead the next morning, the authorities – and us – are wondering whether it might not be of natural causes, a suspicion not helped by the discovery of a trunk full of cash in the attic and a hastily written will, leaving Leonard’s much soughtafter house to Katie.
Dangerous Lies is a frustrating film, filled with teases, red herrings and never-explained sub-plots. As for the big twist? Even those using this as second-screen wallpaper won’t fail to work it out, as the movie had already worked through just about every other permutation.
Meanwhile, Mendes’ character spends so much of the running time fending off allegations that she ends up being remarkably bland and one-dimensional.
Director Michael M Scott tries to create some atmosphere via gliding cameras and shadowy production design, but the helmer of small-screen flicks such as Secret Millionaire, Along Came a Nanny and Christmas on Holly Lane can’t lift this much above typically tired, terrible TV movie fodder.
Dangerous Lies is streaming now on Netflix.