input: As an ex-teacher(!) I must confess to cringing through many scenes - 'though I continued to watch to the end. I wonder why?! (Boredom, perhaps?) :-)

The initial opening scenes struck me as incredibly mish-mashed and unfocussed. The plot, too, although there were some good ideas - the plight of a relief teacher, for example - were not concentrated enough in any one direction for 3-D development.

Not one of Mr Nolte's finer moments. As to young Mr Macchio, does he speak that way in *every* movie?

Plot and acting complaints aside, the hair-styles alone were a nostalgic (if nauseating) trip.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Some of the worst, least natural acting performances I've ever seen. Which is perhaps not surprising given the clunky, lame dialog given to the one note characters. Add to that the cheap production values and you've got a movie that doesn't look like it even belongs on television. One doesn't expect much from a Lifetime movie, especially one this old, but this is nearly unwatchably bad.

Plot-wise, it's a dreadful, cliched romance of a type even Harlequin would consider beneath them. It's possible to guess how the remainder of the movie will go by simply watching the opening couple of scenes. Surprise, the only female character who gets any focus and the mysterious stranger end up falling in love.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: I've been willing to put up with a lot from late-spring/summer action fluff movies, but in general that's been due to the fact that most of them have reasonable payoff (i.e. cool special effects, interesting plot twists, comic value, Steve Buscemi, etc.). This movie, however, had none of this. All that we got was the cheap thrill of several minutes of Eva Longoria's cleavage (an issue of Maxim is cheaper than a movie ticket). There is an embarrassing lack of plot, suspense, back story, character development, continuity, etc. I would get into specifics, but quite frankly I've already-maybe willingly-forgotten most of the movie.

The entire time I was in the theater, I was kicking myself for not just spending the afternoon watching a 24 season on DVD. Save your money on this one, folks. Unless you really, really, really like Eva Longoria's cleavage.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: The synopsis for this movie does a great job at explaining what to expect. It's a very good thriller. Well shot. Tough to believe it was Bill Paxton's directorial debut, though some shots do look EXACTLY like a storyboard version.

Still, there are a few shots that really look good and show some real imagination on the part of Paxton.

It's a solid story with some great twists at the end, several of them, all believable, all fun, and best of all, obscured well enough to make them true twists.

The child actors in the movie do a great, too. I'm usually wary of movies with kids in starring roles because all too often they come off as Nickelodeon rejects, but both these kids do a good job.

This movie is not gory. It's not very scary. But it IS very, very creepy.

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pos/neg ans:
positive