Thicker Than Water (2005)

Natalie (Melissa Gilbert) has just lost her distinguished, judge father. But, hold on! In the will, there is secret information that the man never revealed to his daughter while he was alive. Before Natalie's mother, the learned gentleman had a brief, previous marriage to a rodeo trick rider. Nat is floored! By starting to dig, the beautiful attorney finds that the horsewoman lived on a ranch, not terribly far from Los Angeles. Arriving at this place, Natalie tells the folks there that she is a journalist, working on a story about the former star rider. She immediately learns that this grand dame is deceased, and that her daughter, Jess (Lindsay Wagner) now runs the place. There is also a very handsome ranch hand, Sam, who makes eyes at Nat and visa versa. Two more discoveries come forth. One, the old ranch, with its wild horses, has a great need of drinking water, for a previous source has run dry. Knowing this, a crooked neighbor wants to force Jess to sell her land. But, more importantly, its possible that Jess and Natalie are related. Will things resolve with rainbows for all? This is a very fine film, especially for those who adore romantic drama. Gilbert, Wagner, and the others do nice work fleshing out the movie's characters. Also, as one can imagine, the scenery is quite beautiful, as are the wild horses. While some of the flick's topics are very serious, there is also time for humor and romance. Therefore, if you are drawn to the former stars of Little House or The Bionic woman, or just love romance-on-the-range, this is the film for you.

Melissa Gilbert gets the shock of her life in Thicker Than Water after her father dies. She's a high powered attorney at one of Los Angeles's best white shoe law firms and just getting used to the idea that both of her parents are now deceased. Then the family friend Nan Martin drops an envelope on her with the news that her father had a wife before he married Mom. The first wife was a trick rider Rodeo Queen. As her father was a most conservative sort, that's something she can't figure.She goes in search of wife one and finds a graveyard with another daughter mourning her passing. The daughter is Lindsay Wagner and the half sisters after a bit of getting used to bond quite well.In fact a lawyer who is a sister of any kind comes in quite handy for Wagner who is having a dispute with her neighbor and landlord Granger Hines about water rights and the fact that Lindsay is caring for some wild horses still roaming the range. And there's romance for Gilbert in the person of veterinarian Brian Wimmer.Thicker Than Water is a nice Hallmark Channel production with good roles for both Wagner and Gilbert. I'm sure that is one of the reasons they signed for this film. It's an easy to take film with people you will grow to care about.

I have watched this movie over and over and I love the story. There are some parts that I laugh at every time. It is a clean movie. No cussing, nudity or violence. Unfortunately, this movie is very disappointing due to bad editing and poor direction.Brian Wimmer did an EXCELLENT job portraying Sam, the Vet. Mucho Kudos to Brian! He makes being a Vet look sexy! But the director could have pulled more out of Lindsay Wagner and Melissa Gilbert. Their characters were almost not believable. Lindy Newton did a wonderful job for such a young actress.I would love to find the uncut version of this movie. I believe that a lot of the poor editing choices probably was due to the fact they had to cut to fit television time. But this picture would have been so much better full length.

I rented this movie yesterday and can hardly express my disappointment in little Laura Ingalls for getting involved in something so poorly produced. I am not sure if it was horrible writing or bad directing or both but it leaves a viewer very disappointed in having wasted the time to watch this swill. It consisted of a weak naive story line, very poor lines, and relied solely on pretty scenery, and pretty people to sell it. Unfortunately this was not enough. You would be better off to rent a tape full of static than to waste your time on this crap. Lindsey Wagner also played a pretty pathetic part as a ranch owner who apparently works very hard doing nothing, anybody who has ever been near a ranch knows that this was obviously written by a young person from los Angeles and not someone with much knowledge of the world.