'Twas the night before Christmas and all that was on TV was
dreck. There was the usual complement of the usual Christmas movies that I've seen dozens of times before. We had a few rented DVDs to watch but I needed something to amuse me that didn't require my full attention while I prepared Christmas Eve dinner for the wife and me.
I checked out our cable on-demand station and found more dreck. When I saw "Thrill Of The Kill" starred Shiri Appleby I figured that it might prove interesting and, if nothing else, provide a little eye candy. I haven't noticed Ms Appleby in anything since Roswell where I thought she did a very capable job of portraying Liz. And, here in TOTK, she does an admirable job of playing Kelly Helms whose sister, Allison, was brutally murdered several months ago. The police have no leads and the murder is a cold case.
Kelly reads the titular book written by crime fiction novelist Graydon Jennings (Chris Potter) which describes a murder with striking similarities to that of Allison's. Kelly contacts Jennings and asks for his help in solving Allison's murder. Reading Allison's diary makes it apparent she would crawl into bed with nearly any guy but was actually in love with someone she referred to as "Cicero". With some more sleuthing, the pair determines that Cicero was a US senator. After confronting the senator, the usual sort of bad stuff starts to happen around Kelly.
Plot starting to sound familiar ? It should this things pulls up almost every stupid heroine cliché. Kelly doesn't call the cops when she should, several times. There is a jealous admirer whom everyone ignores. Who, in their right mind in the 21st century, confronts a politician about an affair and possible murder without wearing some kind of recording device ? I guessed the ending about ten minutes into it. My wife paid attention for about ten minutes in the middle of it and knew the ending. Potter's acting was no great shakes ( I kept expecting Zoe Busiek to pop up) and, apart from the sisters, the characters could have been played by mannequins I think some of then actually were ! ;-) If you want to turn your brain off for a couple of hours, this is your movie. Otherwise, bypass it widely.
