A Sister's Revenge (2013) Reviews

• O.K. but pretty typical Lifetime fare

  mgconlan-12013-04-28

  I watched a Lifetime movie that was having its so-called "world premiere" last night: "A Sister's Revenge," a pretty standard-issue bad-girl thriller for the Lifetime channel that shows how much Christine Conradt has set the format for these things and essentially become Lifetime's auteur, to the point where a film that she had nothing to do with (this one had someone named John Serge as the writer and Curtis James Crawford —though IMDb.com leaves out his middle name — as the director) nonetheless hits all the major points of her formula. It begins with a woman in a light SUV running down another woman riding a bicycle; we don't know who either of these two people are yet but the woman in the SUV runs down the woman on the bike and she ends up … well, we presume she's badly injured and is going to be laid up for quite a while. Then the scene cuts to a restaurant called Michael's Bar and Grill, which despite the unassuming exterior and the proletarian name is really a pretty upscale place once Crawford's camera dollies us inside. The proprietor is Michael Miller (Tim Rozon, not exactly drop-dead gorgeous but a good deal handsomer than a lot of Lifetime leading men), who's happily married to a woman named Catherine (Ashley Jones), though she's getting restive because their son Evan was just born and Michael has insisted that Catherine take the first year of Evan's life off work and mother him. Unfortunately, Michael needs to hire a new hostess because his previous one was in an unexpected accident and is going to be laid up for a while (and if you're a veteran Lifetime movie-watcher you don't need two guesses to figure out how that happened), and after turning down the first applicant (she tells him, "I can bench 250 pounds," which makes me think she'd have been a good candidate for the job: with that amount of strength, she could be both a hostess and a bouncer) he hires Suzanne Dunne (Brooke Burns), a blonde who walked in on the job without bothering to turn in an application first but because she's flirting with him (just because he's married doesn't mean he can't look!) and his gonads are in play he hires her anyway. At first I thought this was going to be another one of Lifetime's "Perfect" movies, in which the unscrupulous bad girl goes after the good guy's money and/or his bod and doesn't let the fact that he's already married to the good girl stand in her way one bit. Then we get a scene of Suzanne at home with her boyfriend Jimmy (Joe Marques) and it appears that they're in some kind of plot to scam money out of Michael. Suzanne does everything she can to sabotage both Michael's restaurant and his life, and it's not until about two-thirds of the way through the movie that we finally learn what this is all about: before moving to Philadelphia (where the film takes place), marrying Catherine and building the restaurant, Michael lived in San Francisco and had a relationship with Suzanne's sister Ariel (Allison Busner). We've only seen Ariel on computer videos Suzanne obsessively watches when she's alone at home, and we weren't sure who she was — and for that matter we weren't sure whether these were old tapes or they were Skyping each other in real time (one nice thing about this movie — which hasn't always been true of Lifetime — is at least the communications technology is up to date; there've been Lifetime films set in high school in the mid-2000's which asked us to believe that none of the students had a laptop, a smartphone or a Facebook account). Now we find out through some exposition from Suzanne and a few flashbacks (in which Tim Rozon actually does look credibly younger than he does in the main part of the movie) that Ariel took the relationship a lot more seriously than Michael did. When Ariel got pregnant she expected Michael to marry her; instead he rejected her and went to Philadelphia after leaving her the money for an abortion, and instead of having either the baby or the abortion she committed suicide. That is what Suzanne has been bent on having her titular "sister's revenge" on, and in the film's most chilling scene Michael pleads with her and asks what he can do, to which she replies, "Suffer." "A Sister's Revenge" is one of those obsessive Lifetime movies that isn't terribly good as a movie but is redeemed by a marvelous villainess performance from Brooke Burns, who makes her twisted psyche believable and even a bit understandable (her background is that both she and Ariel were molested as children by their father, and when she saw her dad raping Ariel she killed him and got three years in a mental institution for her pains), but she can't undo the effects of slovenly writing and by-the-numbers direction that portrays Michael's Kafkaesque fate in all too matter-of-fact a manner.

• Not bad... But..,

  rps-22013-12-29

  Okay. This is a pretty good nail biter even though it has all the stereotypes of the genre...perfect housewife...sexpot villain...good looking but shallow and sneaky husband...predictable ending. Gone With The Wind it ain't but it still was better on a snowy Sunday night than ploughing the driveway. But once again we have a film made in Canada and subsidized by the Canadian, Ontario and Quebec governments that is set in Philadelphia.(!!!) We prostitute ourselves repeatedly this way because with the remarkable inferiority complex of the Canadian film industry, we convince ourselves that nobody will watch a movie set in Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver or wherever. We create a few jobs for Canadian film editors, honey wagon drivers and second rate actors that way, but do nothing to enhance our national image. As a taxpayer in Ontario, why am I promoting Philadelphia?

• Lifetime Women Are Tops

  wes-connors2013-08-13

  Model-perfect blonde Brook Burns (as Suzanne) drives her car into a woman riding a bicycle, sending her to the hospital with broken bones. As it quickly becomes evident, Ms. Burns wants the woman's job as hostess at "Michael's Bar & Grill". Dressed for success and seduction, Burns crashes the interview sessions and is immediately hired by handsome Philadelphia restaurateur Tim Rozon (as Michael Miller). Burns lets her boss know she's available for sex, also, but Mr. Rozon declines. His wife Ashley Jones (as Catherine Kearney) is taking a year off work to stay at home and raise their newborn son Evan... This being a "Lifetime" TV movie, you might expect a devious woman plotting against a hapless male. You won't be disappointed... Rozon tells Burns he's going to be faithful to his wife, but she won't take "no" for an answer. Friends at work wonder how Rozon can "keep it at half mast." Things get wild. Although it's fun to watch director Curtis James Crawford and his team deal with the assignment, poor Rozon really should have taken action after either the handcuffs or blackmail incidents. Also, the sex tape looks like a drugged man is being sexually assaulted. Credit writer John Serge with having Rozon ask, "Why didn't I just tell her the truth from the start?" You've got to appreciate lines that that in movies like "A Sister's Revenge". ***** A Sister's Revenge (4/27/13) Curtis Crawford ~ Brooke Burns, Tim Rozon, Ashley Jones, Joe Marques

• Destruction of A Life-A Sister's Revenge ***1/2

  edwagreen2013-06-28

  Exciting taut thriller with a woman hell-bent on extracting revenge against a guy who impregnated her sister. The latter killed herself. What makes the movie this good were the ways that this gal goes about in trying to destroy the life of the guy. Putting roaches in the restaurant that he owned and subsequently setting fire to it, drugging the guy and then getting him bed, having him arrested for poisoning his wife which she had done, and finally the kidnapping of his infant son. The head lead is vicious, cunning and an absolute joy to watch on the screen. How she methodically planned each step in her evil plan is exciting to watch. Did anyone notice that the wife of the guy is a definite Hillary Clinton look-alike?

• The movie is about a sister that wants to extract revenge on a man she blames for her sisters suicide.

  tedknudson2013-04-28

  This movie had a good idea for a plot but the execution was atrocious. Even fiction should be believable. This was not even close. When Suzanne was demanding $75,000 ransom money, the show should have stopped right there. He was drugged you could have seen it in the pictures. He would not have had a problem going to his wife with the proof. He also should have kept the hand cuffs as proof. The movie just keeps getting dumber and dumber from here on out. The problem was not the acting, it was not great but it was OK for a made for TV movie. I thought that Brook Burns did a great job; she just had a lousy script to work with. I would not recommend this movie to anyone.