![]() ![]() If you're one of the few viewers who has never seen "Strangers on a Train," then you may enjoy this. The entire cast is above average for this type movie. At times the raspy voice of Yancy Butler is hard to hear. The three women in the lead roles are sufficient with perhaps the best performance given by Barbara Niven. Bruce Boxleitner is a capable actor and plays the part of a turd with élan. There is more action toward the end, but at times the talk still seems unending. The scene where Kristi and Sheryl plan the mutual murders is far too long, much to verbose. I thought for awhile that the two friends would kill their husbands by talking them to death. There is also too much yakking in the script. So the movie plays out in a predictable manner. The writer/director George Erschbamer decides to stick to a copy of Hitchcock's film. Since the viewer doesn't actually see Sheryl kill Kristi's husband-it's dark and only a shadowy figure is shown pulling the trigger-and since Sheryl's husband Dean brings out the point that his wife has a history of mental problems and drug dependency, it would have been a clever deviation from the original movie to have pointed the finger at others such as Suzanne or even Dean. ![]() So Suzanne places herself in harm's way by agreeing to help Kristi get the whole thing straightened out. Kristi explains that she is being blackmailed by Sheryl. Once Kristi finds out what really happened and that now Sheryl expects her to kill the other husband, she confides in the two women's mutual friend Suzanne who advises Kristi to tell the police who are investigating the murder. Sheryl proceeds to gun the bastard down, as she calls him. Kristi is happy but fails to tell Sheryl the reversal in her attitude about her husband. He is able to explain to Kristi's satisfaction that he only loves her. In the meantime, Kristi confronts her husband with the evidence that he is having an extramarital affair. After she sobers up Kristi forgets the babble but Sheryl is dead serious and views the deal as a pact. As in "Strangers on a Train," each agrees to kill the other's target, in this case the other's spouse. The two women are drinking when the conversation leads to how to dispose of the husbands. ![]() Sheryl's husband, for some reason also named Dean (Bruce Boxleitner), a workaholic multi-millionaire has just informed his wife that he no longer loves her, wonders what he ever saw in the relationship, wants an immediate divorce, will give her a small settlement but no riches because of a prenuptial agreement. Kristi believes her husband Dean (William deVry) to be cheating on her. A third friend Suzanne (Barbara Niven) is an attorney. Kristi (Yancy Butler) and Sheryl (Laura Soltis) are chums who are having problems with their husbands. From the beginning the connection with the Hitchcock masterpiece is obvious only instead of two strangers it's two female friends (actually three but only two are involved in the murder) and rather than a train setting it's one of the women's homes where the supposed pact is cemented. I was disappointed in this made for TV flick, not because it copied the Hitchcock thriller "Strangers on a Train," but because it missed a golden opportunity to take the theme of that classic film and twist it into something new. ![]()
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