★★★
“Cheaters never win.”
After hacktivists expose the identities of users to a dating site, someone starts targeting the victims, murdering them in ways appropriate to their particular sexual fetish. Detective Maxine Peyton (Archer) leads the investigation, but it soon becomes clear that, as well as acting as a moral judge, jury and executioner, the killer has a particular interest in and connection to Maxine. Potential suspects include over-attached boyfriend and college teacher Simon (Hamilton), her cop partner Nick (Beemer), ex-husband Ryan, or even slutty best friend, Jen (Ochise), who keeps trying to hit on Simon. Might even be e) None of the above. As the bodies continue to mount, Maxine has to find the perpetrator before he/she finds her.
I sense the likely destination for this was probably Lifetime or somewhere similar, yet in this case, that should not be taken as a bad thing. For especially in the early going, this is surprisingly well-written, with a good ear for dry sarcasm which helps flesh out characters that could easily be no more than stereotypes. I genuinely LOL’d at Maxine saying to an interview subject, “Please excuse my partner. He was raised by wolves.” This goes for just about everyone: even relatively minor roles, who have only a few moments of screen-time, appear to be real people. The inspiration is clearly the Ashley Madison data breach, though the company here is called “Adeline Lilly” instead – the hacktivist group responsible is also renamed, being “Incognito” rather than Anonymous. Might have been nice if the script had engaged a bit more with the moral issues here, rather than mentioning them in passing.
The problems, however, are more during the second half, as the story – and its climax in particular – relies heavily on the killer basically wanting to be caught. This is always an irritant, especially after the culprit has shown themselves to be relatively smart and savvy in the early going. It does feel like rather lazy writing, unless there has been some particular justification set up for it e.g. they have accomplished whatever it was they set out to do. In this case, that doesn’t happen, and instead someone close to Maxine is kidnapped in order to lure her in. Again, the motivation for this, and why he/she is so obsessed with her, is left rather too vague to work successfully.
Naturally, things end in a moral way, par for the TVM course: those who are guilty, in one way or another, tend to pay with their lives, while the (relatively) innocent are able to survive. While what follows is a spoiler, I have to say that does not include the killer, who is dispatched with surprising if satisfying brutality, at point-blank range. Despite my criticisms about the way things eventually unfold here, this was still a more than acceptable time-passer. Archer and the rest of the cast deliver engaging performances that were good enough to sustain interest, even when the story could have used some additional writing.
Dir: Chris James
Star: Melissa Archer, Graham Hamilton, Brandon Beemer, Alyshia Ochse