Heart of the Storm (2004)

Heart Of The Storm is one of those teledramas and though the genre rarely produces good films they aren't usually this bad.It tells the story of three criminals who break free during work detail and proceed to take a woman and her two teenage girls hostage. You know the drill, you probably know exactly how the thing plays out and you'd no doubt be accurate.The first thing that struck me is how lifeless the film is, so incredibly boring. Very little actually happens, it's just all so dull. Like someone whipped together a script in half an hour and the cast simply couldn't be bothered.Nothing offensive but Heart Of The Storm is 12 shades of boring.The Good:The bit where the credits rolled worked for meThe Bad:Really damn boringMore cheating protagonistsThings I Learnt From This Movie:The prison uniforms were designed by RuPaul

In New Orleans, while the Lila hurricane approaches, three convicted prisoners, Simpson (Thomas Cavanagh), Juke (Marcus Lyle Brown) and Tad (Ritchie Montgomery), escape from the forced labor. In their getaway, they come to the house of Cassie Broadbeck (Melissa Gilbert), who has just left her husband and chief of the local fire department Wayne Broadbeck (Brian Wimmer), and is moving to Chicago with her two daughters, the slow Hayley (Azure Dawn) and Nicole (CiCi Hedgpeth). The tension increases when Wayne breaks in the house trying to save his family."Heart of the Storm" is not a good movie. Exploring the theme of the 1955 and 1990 "The Desperate Hours", with criminals trapped inside a house with a defenseless family, this story is unrealistic and absolutely corny. Living in Brazil, we frequently read on the news how criminals behave when they invade a family house. Imagine three guys in the middle of nowhere with three women challenging the criminals the way they did! The guys had never made any insinuation of sex or tried to rape the women in the story, and Cassie makes a totally unnecessary sexual offer to Simpson, acting like a bitch most of the time. The ham actress CiCi Hedgpeth has one of the worst performances I have ever seen in a movie. Most of the dialogs are also terrible, and it is funny that the most sympathetic characters are Juke and Hayley. The good performance of Thomas Cavanagh is the best part of this forgettable flick. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "No Olho do Furacão" ("In the Eye of the Hurricane")

If you are looking for a film to keep you interested, this is the film for you. You will see lots of lightning, thunder and a very old New Orleans home and antiques. A local area is preparing for a very bad storm and they are starting to sandbag and are getting assistance from convicts. Melissa Gilbert, (Cassie Broadbeck),"Ice House",'89, was put in a position to protect her daughters from wild convicts who escaped. Cassie even told one of the convicts that she would offer herself for sexual favors if they would only leave her two daughters alone and not abuse them. However, the daughters were very willing to cook up some chili and a few tuna fish sandwiches for the convicts pleasure! Thomas Cavanaugh (Simpson),"Something More",'99, played a great role as the gang leader who was mean right down to his toes! This is a very entertaining film and worth watching!

I saw this at the Ft. Lauderdale festival. I found it really entertaining. On the bad side, the script seems very uneven and corny in places, the opening is like a TV movie with Melissa Gilbert baking cookies for the church or something. But once the story starts being about the escaped convicts it's really fun to watch. The other two convicts are played by Mark Brown and Ritchie Montgomery. Ritchie is the most fun in the show. Every time he opened his mouth the crowd laughs.Melissa Gilbert is better than average in this, it seems like she's really trying to get rid of her old TV actress image. But I found her costume really distracting. What woman facing 3 desperate convicts would dress so sexy?The rain and wind and hurricane stuff is really amazing for a movie with an obviously low budget. The music is really good, kind of Cajun.Would people pay $12 to see this at a theater? No. But I'll sure watch it again when it comes to TV.