Next Stop Murder (2010)

****SPOILERS**** Updated version of the 1951 Hitchcock classic "Strangers on a Train" where this time the story takes place on a bus with the manipulating and spoiled rotten Sophie Johanon, Allison Lang, trying to pull off a double murder. That by her getting paralegal Molly Beckhard, Brigid Brannagh, to knock off her strict but caring dad Judge Warren Johanson, Joe Regalbuto,in return for Sophie murdering Molly's husbands Jeff's, Brian Krause, ex Heather Plumb, Rosa Blasi. We've seen it dozens of times before, "Strangers on a Train" clones, but this time around it has a knock your socks off surprise ending that hits you well before the film is over which makes it more then worth watching.Sophie who was just released from the Rolling Hills Mental Institution has had it in for her father since she was a little girl in him keeping her on a short lease by grounding her in taking away the keys to her sports car. That's after she had a sting of preventable car accidents that resulted from her drinking. This forced Sophie take the local Gold Line Bus where she eventually met Molly commuting back and forth from law school.It's when Molly told her about the problems she's having with Heather in trying to get her, Heather's, daughter Gracie, Charlie Stewart, away from her that a light lit up in Sophie's head! Wanting to get her pop out of the way Sophie comes up with this plan in that she'll knock off the pesky Heather and in return Molly would finish off her annoying pop! Thinking this is some kind of a joke Molly soon realizes what a nut case Sophie really is in always getting in touch with her,on the Gold Line bus, and pressing the issue to the point that Molly tries to avoid her at all costs!***SPOILERS*** It when Sophies tarts to impersonate Heather, by covering her blond hair with a red wig, and almost sets the Beckhard home on fire that Molly goes to the police to have the what later turned to be innocent Heather arrested! Things soon turn deadly with Sophie murdering Heather in the local needle park where the drug addicted and alcoholic Heather hangs out that Molly becomes the #1 suspect in her murder! Knowing that she's been set up but not having the proof Molly reluctantly agrees to carry out Sophie's plan to ice her pop in order not to be implicated by fake evidence Sophie planted at Heather's murder scene!It's when your just about get up and turn the boring as dishwater movie off in feeling you've seen it all before your hit with a shock, obviously timed to perfection by the films director, that knocks you as well as almost everybody else in the cast flat on your back! As it turns out Molly finds out the truth about Sophie from her dad the Judge when she broke into his home to take him out, of his life not for dinner, that left her speechless! It' then that the film that was as predictable as the morning sunrise really started to get interesting!Great final sequence with Molly and Sophie together with the Judge and Jeff having it out on the Gold Line bus with the passengers and bus driver running for cover to prevent themselves from being, in this no holds bar cat fight, scratched to death! It was Sophie kidnapping Gracie, to make sure Molly would carry out her deranged plan, that really tipped the scales against her. Molly was willing to take all the abuse that Sophie could dish out on her, even a jail sentence from a crime that she didn't commit, but when she started messing with her daughter it turned out to be the last straw for her!

In a suburban California community, red-headed law student Brigid Brannagh (as Molly) meets cool blonde Allison Lange (as Sophie) on a bus. The attractive women talk over problems. Riding the bus because her rich daddy took the T-Bird away, Ms. Lange doesn't seem entirely sane; as it turns out, she's fresh out of a "Rolling Hills" mental institution. Seeming to be more even more distraught, Ms. Brannagh is troubled by her husband's first wife Rosa Blasi (as Heather), a crazed drug addict who causes embarrassing scenes for Brannagh, brawny hubby Brian Krause (as Jeff), and their cute 'n' cuddly daughter Charlie Stewart (as Gracie)...If you've seen Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" (1951), you can get off at the next stop. But, if you want to go along for the ride, it's "Next Stop Murder" as Lange decides she should kill the ex-wife troubling Brannagh in exchange for the latter killing daddy Joe Regalbuto (as Warren). Lange tells Brannagh, "We can help each other out of our nightmares." Naturally, things don't go according to plan…This is an average made-to-run-on-TV production. It's nice to see Lin Shaye turn up as the detective, and the scenes between Brannagh and little Miss Stewart are nicely done; the story does not take advantage of the fact that they look like mother and daughter (they could have made them aunt and niece). Unfortunately, this is a blatantly inferior version of Patricia Highsmith's original story, expertly filmed by Alfred Hitchcock (as the aforementioned "Strangers on a Train"). Although the leading characters have been changed to women, the same sex subtext (attraction) is missing; neither Highsmith nor Hitchcock would approve.**** Next Stop Murder (2010) John Murlowski ~ Brigid Brannagh, Allison Lange, Brian Krause, Joe Regalbuto

This Lifetime Movie Network movie is a blah sex-change variation of Alfred Hitchcock's classic STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, with psycho Allison Lange killing Brian Krause's psycho ex-wife to make things easier for his current wife, Brigid Brannagh -- the last an actress new to me, whom I like very much -- she could be a voice double for the late Suzanne Pleshette. The acting is decent, but by the time anything new showed up in the story, I had lost interest.There's little that's particularly wrong about this movie, but there is nothing in it that is actively engaging. Once you realize the model of the story, everything becomes very predictable except you wonder how they could have missed the things that made the original Hitchcock movie so good.The pacing is flat, the music is overwrought and the camera lighting is dark and broody, except for the scene where they are explaining to the little girl that mommy has been murdered: that shot is a very pretty one.In short, there is nothing in this sub-par time waster to attract anyone who has seen the Hitchcock original.

This almost tops the list as the worst film of the year. Story is just plain stupid. The acting is just as bad on every one's part, except the little girl and the father who managed to make a decent performance out of a trite and idiotic story line. The two leading ladies, won't mention their names as I'd sooner forget their work. One goes around looking like a vampire as the daughter who wants her daddy dead. The other goes around with this weird look on her face. She looks crazier than the crazy one. Backed by over the hill acting. And the guy playing the husband is just as bad. The acting on all parts is so bad, I laughed.Writing, directing not so good either. Wow, sure would like the money they spent in producing this loser. It might have backed a more worthy work of art. Too bad.