Out of Control (2009)

This is the usual suspense movie, good enough to hold your attention but nothing you'll be talking to your friends about afterward. Ms. Vandervoort does a fair job in this, as do the others, and it held my interest well enough. I've never felt much sympathy for stunningly beautiful women, not being one myself; I figured their beauty compensated for whatever prejudices they faced. Reading the venomous comments regarding Ms. Vandervoort, though, gave me an insight into the malice some people direct their way. This movie is not destined to be a classic studied in film classes, true, but the actors and actresses in it do an average to slightly above-average job.

Boy this thing had the stamp of Lifetime all over it. Released in 2009 and produced in Canada, Out of Control stars Laura Vandervoort, an absolutely stunning blonde. She plays Marcie, who is a Chicago cop longing to be a detective. She gets her chance, against the wishes of her retired officer father.In real life, Vandervoort has a second degree black belt in karate. I have a feeling in her case it was necessary.I actually can't describe the acting in this because I didn't see any. The pacing is terrible, and the characters are vapid and not very likable. They all have attitude for days. Then there's the script.And it's badly miscast. I'm not saying beautiful women don't become policewomen, of course they do. But I wouldn't describe Laura Vandervoort as simply beautiful. We're talking Miss Universe or supermodel here. Someone like this, if she wanted to be involved in law enforcement, would be doing something that required her to go undercover exposing drug lords, corruption in high finance, doing FBI stings. Certainly she'd be too valuable for a job investigating murder on the Chicago police force.Annoying rather than entertaining.

Typical LMN empty plot trite with typical bleached blond in the lead. I was rooting for the villains in this one for certainly Laura Vandervoot in the lead was more of a bitch than any one else. Always with a nose in the air attitude and going around looking out of place in the police station. She annoyed me very much as she stepped on all in her way. I had wished someone would have done her in. No such luck. We're forced to look at this bimbo for two hours attempting to unravel the plot walking over all in her way. Some broad, eh? Even her own father, she smart mouths. By the way he gave one of the better acting jobs. Francis X. McCarthy didn't have much to do, but the little he did do, was fine. Amy Sloan also did a great job in an unrewarding role. I wanted her to bash in the leading lady's head when she gave her so much crap. There is nothing rewarding about this mess. Oh, yes, Chris Kramer plays the man in the film and he does a decent job. I felt sorry for them all to have to play opposite such a loser. Her so called karate moves in the end are so laughable, I split my sides. She's such a bad actress and unbelievable from beginning to end. Frightening to think this blond bimbo will be on the police force. Egads!

In all honesty I was expecting a pretty bad movie but I have to say that it turned out to be okay.Plotwise it's your usual TV movie of the week standard fare. Nothing electrifying and the pace is rather pedantic but it's definitely a lot better than 80% of the made for TV movies that I've seen, and unfortunately for me I've seen quite a lot lately! The main cast puts their time in even if it is rather listlessly and formulaic. The only downside to the casting is that of Laura Vandervoot. She's highly unconvincing in her supposed role as a police criminologist and even more so as an aspiring detective to be, instead looking fashionable in most scenes and not really doing much. For someone who's supposedly top of their class in detective school she sure makes a lot of big mistakes and crosses some professional lines. However, the surprising part is that she didn't do a bad acting job. Nothing spectacular but nothing that sank to the depths of a certain Paris Hilton, which I must admit I had been expecting.All in all, if you've got nothing to do on a Sat night, or even a weeknight and are waiting for the laundry to finish drying it's worth filling in the time. Don't watch with high expectations and you'll make it through the movie just fine.