... because this film was rushed out the door months after the incident happened. That being 17 year old Amy Fisher shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the face at point blank range, claiming to be the lover of Mary Jo's husband, Joey.
This film was shown in competition with "The Amy Fisher Story" about the same incident on competing networks on the same night - January 3, 1993. The two stories had different theories. This film portrays Joey as a rather buff rather flirty guy who owns an auto body shop who draws the attention of an unstable Amy who decides that she and Joey can be together if she gets rid of the wife. Amy's story - and the viewpoint of the other film - is that she was a young girl manipulated by the 30 something older man, was his lover, and had been told by him that he would go to her, but his wife needed him. Soon after this film was released the latter theory was proven true when hotel receipts surfaced. Like Michael Douglas in "Fatal Attraction" Joey didn't figure on what would happen and the instability of the other woman. Unlike "Fatal Attraction", Joey drew the ire of society - and his wife with the bullet in her head - by stepping out with a minor.
That rendered this film completely obsolete, so I haven't seen it since it since aired. I probably wouldn't have seen it the first time, but I was a guest at my then fiance's sister's home and this is what she wanted to watch.
I'd give it less than a six, but Alyssa Milano is very good as Amy. She is actually from Brooklyn and she had to lose her accent to get into acting. Then she had to pick her accent back up again to be in this film, and that was difficult. Also, Lawrence Tierney makes an unexpected late career appearance as Joey's father, and he is always a pleasure. Tierney was always a scandal with all of his bar room brawls, but his many romances at least were limited to those who were of legal age.
A museum piece by this time, but if you can ever find it probably worth it for the actors I mentioned and as a time machine of sorts.
