Lawbolisted Powerful

Steineded How sad is this?

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Aquariusfeb12 I think this movie was really wonderful. Yet sad at the same time. when i find out it was based on a true story, i just like the way they have the characters make it look so real. it is a really excellent movie, and sad. i hope that other movies based on true stories will be just as wonderful as this one. i can basically say that if Shannon were to act in another movie like this, i would be one of them to watch it right away. i mean, this movie probably could take your breath away and you would not even know it yet there are some sad parts to this movie, especially when Jacklyn is murdered and the parents are blamed for it. i love the way they directed it and everything. but i hope there will be other great movie just like this one!!!

Robert J. Maxwell A Chicago couple, Dillon and Dougherty, are falsely accused of killing their daughter. People begin to wonder if they did it. The police investigate and find suspicious evidence. The couple are maligned by the public and accused in the press. The cops speculate that they are Satanists and have ritually murdered their own daughter. They are charged and brought to trial. They are represented by publicity-seeking lawyers who give them bad advice and bill them for $100,000. The evidence presented against them is twisted or hidden by the police. Fabricated intimations of sexual abuse are presented. Their other child is taken away from them and put in a foster home. Dougherty is pregnant and gives birth to find her baby removed. Verdict, she didn't do it but he did. He goes to the slams with a sentence of 45 years.In the last third of the movie, with Dillon in jail and Dougherty wondering what to do next, we see people who have been antagonistic now slowly coming to the couple's defense. Witnesses admit to having lied. Other facts are brought to light that, finally, result in Dillon's release. The killer is never found, though the movie gives us a thorough whacko as a plausible perp.This is a weeper from beginning to end. Nothing seems to go right for the couple. Oh, there are a few happy moment, maybe a party where everyone is glad to be together and tearing up with joy, or some point of evidence in their favor is discovered and people hug one another. But it's never long before someone rushes through the door with more bad news and all the faces are frozen in tragic disbelief. (Usually a fade to block follows.) There isn't necessarily anything wrong with moving tragedies, although I can't imagine what pleasure we get out of seeing people suffer. There's plenty of tragedy in Shakespeare too. I suppose whatever we find interesting about tragic stories lies in the way they're told. "Oh, but I am Fortune's fool!" Romeo cries after killing Juliet's brother. Here we have Dougherty running in her robe through a hospital corridor, screaming, "Where's my baby???" There isn't any ambiguity or irony in the story -- as I'm sure there must have been in the real life events on which it's based. People are either good or bad here. Or else they're bad, then they turn good.The film isn't aimed at exploring human quirkiness, or the way things work out. It's aimed at wrenching tears from the audience. The actors provide first-rate role models. I can't remember the last movie in which I saw so many tears. There are rivulets of tears. Showers of them. Cascades of them. A veritable Niagara of them. A Lake Lacrymose of them.Well, I'll give one example of the efficiency with which the movie is crafted. Dillon and Dougherty hire a Chicago cop who works on the side as a private investigator (Ed Asner). Asner is sympathetic to them but he doesn't really accomplish much. He seems to be in the movie not because of his importance to the case but because he can provide the victimized couple with a kind of philosophy -- "Learn to live with it," which is okay -- and because he suffers from colorectal cancer, so we can watch him take his medicine, double over with pain, and finally pass away.What's frustrating about the movie is that in focusing so intensely on the suffering of the couple, it sidesteps one of the more important issues that it raises -- the function of gossip in regulating private lives.Gossip is a strange thing really. If we call it "gossip" it's bad, but if we call it "public opinion" it sounds acceptable, at the very least. Of course we all have convictions about issues that may or may not be justified. (As I write, Michael Jackson is once again being brought to court accused of molesting a young boy, and I wonder how many of us thrilled at the news and immediately assumed he was a pedophile.) But gossip isn't all bad either. It's like water. When it's properly controlled it's a community asset. We need gossip to keep each other in line. It helps us to maintain public order. But, like water in a flood or a tsunami, it is ruinous to a village when it rages out of control.This is a movie that's okay if you're not looking for too much in the way of insight into human nature. It's done so cleverly that, given its goal, it's hard to argue with it.

ashleybox64 ** Spoiler Warning **This movie is so sad to watch, the film is about a couple daughter is is abducted and then killed and they are blamed for it. soon they are put on trail for the murder of their daughter. the film is a top buy - if you can find it in the shops. it shows how the media influenced the case. the film is based on a true story. it's the kinda film you will never forget.Shannen Doherty acting is stop on. it shows her at her best.the film co stared - Kevin Dillon, Edward Asner, Michael Brandon and Dixie Carter

janni_me This film just fantastic.. I LOVE IT!! All that kinda drama, and the way the american police/whatever treats them, it's the truth - and a hard truth!! I love this film... Can't say it enough..!! And Shannen Doherty's my favourite actor, so.. That's a bonus!!! I'd love to own this film... :o)