Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Secrets of an Undercover Wife

Well, it's been more than a month since my last Lifetime review. I apologize. As some of you know, I recently moved from Washington, DC to Columbus, OH. So other priorities got in the way. But now I'm unemployed and have a DVR. The sky's the limit, baby.

Yesterday's feature was Secrets of an Undercover Wife. It with a couple on a lakeside cabin. They are making out and we get some pretty hot and heavy bra-and-panties action. Suddenly the dude decides to skee-daddle leaving Lil Miss Thing all hot and bothered. So she takes a shower and someone shoots her to death.

We flash to a blushing bride with her Maid of Honor. The Maid of Honor makes a few bitchy remarks about the Groom maybe not being the right guy for the Bride, Lisa. Lisa calls her on that and the Maid of Honor's awesome response is, "I don't know what I'm talking about. I can't even find a man." HA!

So there's a wedding and of course the Groom is the dude who left the bra lady to get shot to death. The wedding seems very nice though. That is until the FBI busts it! The Groom, Paul, is arrested on a bunch of white collar charges. He's accused of stealing investor money and diverting it to the Cayman Islands. A first degree murder charge follows soon enough.

Paul informs Lisa that he was having an affair and, for some reason, it's never brought up again. Lisa doesn't care. She's too focused on the murder charge.

Paul's apparent motive is that he, the lady, and another partner, Clayton, owned a waste management company. Hmmm? Waste management? I wonder who else is involved in this little venture. Let's go through the alphabet to see if I can figure it out. Job? Kob? Lob? Nope, I can't crack it.

Anyways, their big breakthrough patents are all failing so they would have to return the millions of investor dollars. So Paul resorted to murder.

Well, something clearly isn't on the up and up. Clayton, who is now dating the Maid of Honor (who is also Lisa's business partner), has basically shut Paul out of the business. And the attorney they hired is clearly up to no good. Also, Clayton is so obviously gay that my living room just interior decorated itself. The idea that this guy would have a girlfriend....no.

The Maid of Honor decides to buy out Lisa's half of their business (an art gallery). When Lisa asks if this is the right thing to do, the Maid of Honor (who should be renamed Princess Valium) replies with, just like at the wedding, more crazy.

"I don't know if it's the right thing. I don't know why....love begins. Or why love ends."

Lisa awesomely responds to that by asking if Clayton was hitting her.

And the answer is, YES! Princess Valium finds some of Clayton's paperwork and she decides to skim through it. When Clayton discovers her she gets the back of his hand. We get a quick cut to P.V. calling Lisa saying her life is in danger and they need to meet up. When Lisa finds her, she is already all murdered up.

At least PV had the good sense to send a text message to Lisa before her death. It's the name of some investment capital business.

So Lisa decides to go undercover and get a job there. She dyes her hair blonde and wears an incredibly ugly zebra overcoat. Her husband's bail bondsman (a brassy lady who eats pizza and drinks beer) says the zebra jacket is "professional." Um? She looks like a clown.

So, she gets an entry-level job and ends up making friends with the CEO who is OBVIOUSLY EVIL and who is falling in love with Lisa. Because the CEO, Michael, is a fucking CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation and therefore not a dummy, he quickly realizes something is up. But not before Lisa and the BondsLady use some gizmos like gummy bears (apparently you can lift fingerprints with gummy bears?) to break into Michael's office and get all of his codes and passwords and whatnot.

Oh, somewhere in there, Michael and his toughnik body guard (who looks like Big Bird with a shaved head) kill Clayton.

Michael kidnaps Lisa and tells her that he knows who she really is. It turns out that, shockingly, Michael is in the mob and on America's top-10 most wanted list.

So, let me get this straight. The FBI is is ready to bring this guy in dead or alive. Everyone's looking for him. And he's a CEO who shows up to the office every day? What!?!? Even for Lifetime, this is a wacky stretch.

Since Michael is in the mob, he decides to kill Lisa. Just kidding! He inexplicably takes her to the Cayman Islands to meet his mob boss father and rape her. Yes, seriously.

What Michael doesn't know is that Lisa is holding a transmitter that tells the BondsLady exactly where she is. So BondsLady manages to fly to the Cayman Islands, break into the Mafia compound, and save Lisa just in the nick of time.

Oh, and then the FBI shows up and tries to take Michael into custody. BondsLady refuses to give him up since she wants the multi-million dollar award.

The movie ends with Paul and Lisa's reunion as Paul leaves prison.

ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 6

Bad, bad, bad sound editing. Other than that, there were no real acting liabilities. I had no idea what was going on and the film kept me guessing until the very end. This of course because the plot made no sense, but whatever, points for confusing me.

IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 8

Here's a question that will determine if you will like this movie. When a character asks her husband to look into her eyes and tell her that he's not involved in a first degree murder, and the cameraman zooms to the guy's eyes...If this is the funniest thing in the world to you, you will love this movie. And, yeah, I think it's pretty hilarious.

Again, let me stress that this movie makes no sense. If you were working undercover with no help from any policing organization and you discovered you were neck deep in the mob, how long until you stopped showing up for work? A lot of the enjoyment from this movie comes from the total lack of women's intuition.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 3

I'm told that some people enjoy the Saw franchise. Well, then you'll recognize Lisa. She's played by Shawnee Smith and she's in all four of the wretched things. Other than that, slim pickings.

LIFETIMENESS: 7

Although Lisa's intuition was generally lacking, the BondsLady was a fucking superhero. Also, the bad guy was a powerful murdery rapist. So, yeah, that was pretty Lifetimey.

GRAND TOTAL: 24

Not the best, but definitely not a waste of time. I recommend it. I would have liked it a lot more if Lisa were a single mom whose kid was experimenting with drugs or something. Alas, you can't always get what you want.

16 comments:

HRH King Friday XIII, Ret. said...

"When a character asks her husband to look into her eyes and tell her that he's not involved in a first degree murder, and the cameraman zooms to the guy's eyes..."


HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anonymous said...

Saw 1 was amazing, though I will admit 2 and 3 are considerably weaker. I can't speak to 4 as I haven't seen it. Please amend the generalization you made trashing all four, noting that the first is brilliant. Do it now! Thank you.

Russell said...

Oh, Mr. Friday, it's so good to see you commenting here.

HRH King Friday XIII, Ret. said...

That's KING Friday, bitch. :)

Terry Graves said...

The guy was so gay my living room decorated itself!

Anonymous said...

Just discovered this site. You are awesome. Do you just review them as they air or do you tape them and review them whenever you feel like it? Some suggestions:

Death of a Cheerleader
Love's Deadly Triangle: The Texas Cadet Murder
Coed Call Girl
Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story
A Secret Between Friends
Too Young to Marry
Gospel of Deceit
The Babysitter's Seduction
Dying to Belong

Anonymous said...

Forgot "Cradle of Conspiracy"

Erin said...

This is fabulous! Please tell me you have a Kellie Martin montage in the works? She's the queen of Lifetime TV!

Anonymous said...

Great blog. I was hoping that you could someday review the movie that stars John Ritter, I think, and he is a doctor and has 3 wives and he's always running from one wife to another saying "There's an emergency at the hospital."

I don't know the name but none of your titles rang a bell when I looked them over.
Thanks.

Alanna said...

Congrats Rusty, you got plugged on Jezebel!! Also, please tell me how Columbus compares to D.C.

Margaret said...

Oh, you are going to get me started watching these again!! Such trash, but such art! And where else can you see Melissa Gilbert several times a week?

Seth D. said...

please note that Shawnee Smith is also recognizable from her role on the vastly underrated sitcom "Becker," one of those shows that nobody likes, cares about or thinks about but was on for a million years and is also syndicated so you can watch it while you eat lunch during periods of unemployment.

Anonymous said...

I found your site by way of Jezebel, and OMG I am awed, AWED by the awesomeness. I look forward to reading past posts - I've got plenty of time I'm unemployed too.

Unknown said...

I do know Shawnee Smith from the Saw films but I tend to think of her as the pregnant teen (scandal!) from Summer School.

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