Tell Me No Lies

Plot synopsis:
Laura Cooper (Kelly Rutherford) phones the police saying that her car has been stolen, and that she knows who she was: it was her daughter, rebellious fiftenn-year-old Samantha "Sam" Cooper (Kirsten Prout). Her father had learnt her to drive last summer. The police find her in a beach party. Samantha wanders off on her own, and she watches some teenagers arguing about something. Some of them push another down a cliff. Shawna (Samantha Ferris) is the disapproving mother of Tori (Andrea Whitburn), Sam's best friend.The newspaper says that Alex Mills (Aidan Kahn) suffered an accident. Jordan Bates (Jesse Moss) thinks that Alex was going to confide on the the police. Jordan and his two accolites Glenn (Andrew Francis) and Derek Russell (Jesse Haddock) have recorded all their crimes, and they usually keep the videotapes hidden away. That's how they realise that Sam was hiding behind some bushes when they pushed Alex to his death. Jordan threatens Sam, who will stay silent as well. Jordan acts with impunity because he's the son of Chief Bales (Eric Keenleyside).When Sam comes back home, her mother tells her off because she was late. Sam tells Laura that she only cares about her online degree in marketing. Laura wants to improve herself and her living conditions, but Sam thinks that they used to have a better life when she was living with her father. That night, a threatening stone is thrown through Sam's window, who says that she broke the window with a lamp-. Sam is questioned, like everybody else at the beach party, but she remains silent. Principal Myers (B.J. Harrison) is present. Sam knows that the boys will kill her if they think she's said something. She asks Tori for the 84 dollars she has earned being a baby sitter: she wants to leave town for a while.Bunny (Eileen Barrett) is Laura's friend, and realises that Laura can't cope with everything. Bunny recommends her to register Sam's room. Laura notices the broken pieces of glass inside the room, not outside, and sees the marijuana, the fake driving license, in a box hidden away. Laura tries to reason with Sam, but the teenager doesn't want to listen at all. Sam says that Laura can't respect her feelings or give her her own space. Laura also watches Jordan staying vigilant in his truck outside her home. Sam tries to talk to her father, but he lives far away not, and doesn't want to be bother about that, because he's living with Rhonda now.Officer Brady Thomas (Stephen Spender) phones Laura: Sam will sleep at a cell on the police station because she was caught thumbing a lift alone at night. Sam doesn't want to talk, but Laura knows that she's on trouble.At the garage, Laura talks with Gordon Russell (David Allan Pearson) about the Alex Mills case. She makes the connection between her car, damaged by Sam, and the cliff where Alex died. Gordon mentions that he was not the first person to die there. Laura asks Tori's mother to ask Tori, because the girl was worried about Sam as well. Derek works with his father, at the garage. Laura asks Derek about Sam and Alex. At that moment, Jordan medles with Laura's car. Derek realises so but stays silent. When they almost die because of the non-working brakes, Sam talks to her mother at last, but gives her no names. Derek also tries to talk to Sam, but she knows that she can't trust him anymore, and tells him that he knows that Alex's death was not an accident. Sam tries to tell Tori that they should talk, but Tori refuses. Laura tells Gordon that his son or his son's friends must have tried to kill her. Gordon dismisses her, and gets mad at her.The principal is watching as the police find some ecstasy on Sam's locker. Officer Thomas doesn't believe her when Laura says that it's all a conspiration against Sam. Derek says to Jordan that he doesn't want to have anything to do with all the things anymore, but Jordan and Glenn laugh it off. They have even recorded Sam while she was arrested after trying to break away from Officer Thomas. Gordon realises that the brakes of the car had been tampered with. He faces Derek, who runs away miserably. Obviously, Jordan and Glenn try to kill him.Laura visits Tori. She says that she was raped, but she doesn't want to talk. Sam tells her mother that Jordan keeps all his crimes recorded, and threatened her friend to show everybody the video if she would say anything to anybody.Laura faces Bates senior, but he thinks she's crazy. When Bates talks to his son, he can feel that he's lying. Jordan threatens Sam, still in jail, and also tries to kill Derek, still on a coma at hospital, smothering him with a pillow, but fortunately for Derek and his parents, Laura was there to prevent it.Shawna and Laura try to handcuff Glenn in a clumsy way. He runs away to Jordan, who demands him that he should not panic. Laura plots to look for the tapes at Jordan's. Shawna tells officer Thomas, who finds weird that Bates is taking Sam to the correctory facility at another town himself. Bates takes a different route, and Sam starts to panic. Thomas goes to the Bates' home to protect Laura from Jordan.Nancy Russell (Grace Bauer) is terribly happy when Dered wakes up from his coma.Bates gives him money to Sam so that she runs away and never comes back, but she refuses. At that moment, on the patrol radio he's told that somebody had broken into his home. Jordan points a gun to Laura, but she defends herself until Thomas arrives. He tells Bates that he can prove that Jordan took some of the ecstasy pill from the police station.Laura and Sam go back home together and happy.---written by KrystelClaire

Tags: romantic

Review:
Very good, for a TV-movie.
Laura Cooper runs a coffee shop and is divorced from her husband.
She is getting an online college degree in marketing.
She is so busy her rebellious teenage daughter Samantha is fast becoming a delinquent that the police think should be locked up.One night the car is missing and Laura reports it stolen.
She knows Samantha took it, and that Samantha is only 15 and has no license.
Samantha is at a party where she witnesses Jordan, Derek and Glenn threatening Alex.
Alex is accidentally pushed off a cliff.
The boys show no remorse, however, so it's the same as if they had murdered him.
They don't see Samantha, but since they videotape their adventures, they see her when they watch what happened on Jordan's computer.Samantha is so upset after what she witnessed that her reckless driving attracts the attention of a cop.
This is just her first run-in with the law (in this movie), and she's not going to get any more second chances.
Laura tries to help Samantha, but Samantha's not willing to listen to her, and if she thought her father wanted her, she would be going to live with him.The guys start threatening Samantha.
She tells her best friend Tori (who has been the boys' victim) what happened, but won't talk to anyone else.
Laura doesn't know why her daughter is behaving so strangely or why she has to keep picking her up from jail--or why the cops finally make her spend the night.The threats get worse and worse, and turn into more than threats.
It doesn't help that Jordan's father is the chief of police.
And Derek's father is Laura's mechanic.This is quite an exciting movie.
Of course it's kind of scary to see teenage boys with no morals, though maybe they aren't as bad as they seem.
It's rare to see ordinary small-town kids go so overboard with threatening behavior.Everyone does such a good job, particularly the two female leads, Kelly Rutherford and Kirsten Prout.
Samantha Ferris as Tori's mother and David Pearson as Derek's father also stand out in relatively brief roles.When pushed hard enough, Laura has the ability to get things done.
Some may not approve of everything she does, but under the circumstances, certain behaviors are justified.I only recall one weakness--very strange weather.
The ground can be covered with snow in one part of town, while no snow at all has fallen in other areas.It's really worth seeing..
Suspenseful!.
This movie is aptly named!
The title names accurately the ways in which the problems arise for the characters involved - both the protagonists and antagonists.
Everything hinges on lies and secrets, but it's easy to see that doing anything different would have been difficult - especially for the (main) teen-aged girl.
What surprised me was how suspenseful this movie was.
I anticipated a crime drama, but with the suspense level in this movie, it borders on thriller.
You know, the kind where you aren't entirely sure the "bad guy" isn't going to get away with what s/he did.
(I don't normally watch thrillers, so it will probably be tame to most of you.) The ways in which the characters deal with the issues - and the ways in which they don't - are believable and make for an interesting story.
It was not hard to believe that they responded in the ways they did, which was refreshing, and kept the story moving.
Never a dull moment in this one!.
teen girl drama.
very interesting movie about a young teenage girl who witnesses a murder at a frat party where she wasn't supposed to be in the first place.
her mother doesn't seem to keep track of her daughter, therefore she decides to take the car and go to that party,, the boys that she seen apparently video their murders, alas this isn't the first,, she is antagonized at school, picked on and threatened at home by having a rock thrown through her bedroom window,, the mother seems clueless as the daughter won't tell her mother what is going on in her life,, the girl keeps getting in trouble with the law,, her friend isn't much of a help as she is keeping a secret for her friend , and therefore they vow not to tell each other's secret , typical teenage drama..
but definitely a very interesting look at parenthood and teenage girl drama..
good tension for TV movie.
Samantha Cooper (Kirsten Prout) is a rebellious teen.
Her divorced mom Laura Cooper (Kelly Rutherford) is overwhelmed.
Sam witnesses a murder while out at a party in the woods.
She drives away recklessly and gets arrested.
The murderers are led by Jordan Bates who is the son of the police chief.
She tells her friend Tori.
The boys videotaped the incident and notice Samantha running away.
They threaten her.
She tries to run away to her dad.
Her mother starts asking questions and Jordan sabotages her car.
She finally tells her mother the truth but they plant ecstasy in her locker and she's arrested.This is pretty good for a TV movie.
There is good tension.
Rutherford and Prout make a good combative mother daughter relationship.
It is good that not every adult is clueless like most other similar movies.
They are somewhat realistic human beings.
It does need to be tightened up to build to a more exciting climax and the production value is limited.
Considering what it is, this is a pretty good movie..
Continuity.
I generally liked "Tell Me No Lies" and I noticed through seeing the movie on the second occasion that when Jesse Haddock (Derek Russell) was forced off the road that he was driving a Camaro and later on in the movie when the police investigated the accident they improvised Derek's Camaro for a Firebird.I actually contacted Front Street Pictures and received no reply to me e-mail.
Other than that I liked the movie and I think Kirsten Prout and Kelly Rutherford are great actresses and wish them well.Kirsten Prout was better in Elektra and I feel that she would be great in a sequel to Elektra along with Jennifer Garner and Terrance Stamp..
Good Kelly Rutherford drama that's sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
TELL ME NO LIES, in opinion, is a good Kelly Rutherford drama that's sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
There were only two people I couldn't stand, and those were the Bates men (Jesse Moss and Eric Keenleyside).
There are several reasons I said that.
One reason was because of their attitudes towards Samantha.
Before I wrap this up, I'd like to say that the performances were spectacular, the production design was good, the writing was sharp, and the direction was strong.
Now, in conclusion, if you liked Kelly Rutherford on "MELROSE PLACE," you'll really love her in this good drama that's sure to keep you on the edge of your seat..
Feels like Durham County.
This movie starts out as a typical teen thriller, but eventually morphs into a bona fide drama of suspense.
It succeeds in making the viewer feel the frustration of the good guys and victims, as by two-thirds of the way through, the viewer is ready to serve justice oneself...if one could only get through to the other side of the TV screen!
The movie gets better towards the end, as events close in on the bad guys.
Suspense reaches a climax when the integrity of the top authority figure is called into question.If you saw and liked the TV series, "Durham County," you might like this, as it has a similar ambiance and tone..
Storyline Not Credible.
What could have been a decent drama about a rebellious teen who finds herself in a dangerous situation, and finally trusts her mother to help get her out of it, falls apart because of the mother's approach.
In a real-life situation, when a mother finally puts together a scenario that involves the rape of her daughter's friend (who has one of those mothers who is a "friend" rather than mother to her daughter and helps the two girls in their stonewalling), the murder of a teen witness, the sabotage of her car in which she and her daughter were nearly killed, the arrest and incarceration of her daughter because someone framed her by planting drugs in her school locker, the son of the chief of police is behind it all, and a possible police cover-up, she would hire a lawyer to protect herself and her daughter.
But, rather than hire an attorney to represent -- and protect -- herself and her daughter, or even go to the school authorities or her family, friends or neighbors, this mother chooses to handle this impossibly complex situation herself by leaving her daughter in jail under the supervision of a corrupt police chief while she runs around playing Nancy Drew, trying to gather evidence even while she is aware that there are murderous teens ready to strike again and a police cover-up in play.
Even if she had tried, and failed, to secure legal representation or advice, it would have made a much more thrilling story.
Even small towns have attorneys.
The two mothers even try to make a citizen's arrest of one of the teen killers!
This story is unbelievable to the point of being silly.