Dennis Burke, a college professor, and a Nathaniel Hawthorne scholar, has a fine eye for beautiful young students. He has written a novel that is well regarded, especially by his young women. As the story begins, one of the students in his class threatens to expose him to the faculty. Dennis must make a decision right away to solve his problem: he will accept a position at a California college.
Things start looking good for Dennis, finally. The class he is teaching has a great number of students, mostly female, no doubt impressed by the novel he wrote than their interest in Hawthorne. Settling into his new apartment, Dennis notices there is a lot of correspondence for the previous tenant. Trying to find out his new address, gets him nowhere. Dennis makes a tactical and moral error when he reads one of the letters address for the man that lived there before him.
The letters are from Lydia, who turns out to be a prisoner. Intrigued, Dennis reads all of the letters that are quite explicit. He finds out this Lydia is trailer park trash, but goes after her. She, in turn, will get him into all sorts of problems, for she claims she is innocent for a crime she did not commit. She wants to prove her innocence and for that she plans to use Dennis.
"Red Letters" appears to have suffered a case of 'direct-to-cable' fate. Bradley Battersby, the director also contributed to the screenplay he wrote with Tom Hughes. The creators borrowed from other films about the same subject. The viewer has an inkling where the whole thing is going and the logic of Lydia's escape and subsequent revenge is stretched to the limit. We have always liked Peter Coyote. He is a versatile actor who had done better before. Nastassja Kinski's Lydia is not one of her best roles.
Things start looking good for Dennis, finally. The class he is teaching has a great number of students, mostly female, no doubt impressed by the novel he wrote than their interest in Hawthorne. Settling into his new apartment, Dennis notices there is a lot of correspondence for the previous tenant. Trying to find out his new address, gets him nowhere. Dennis makes a tactical and moral error when he reads one of the letters address for the man that lived there before him.
The letters are from Lydia, who turns out to be a prisoner. Intrigued, Dennis reads all of the letters that are quite explicit. He finds out this Lydia is trailer park trash, but goes after her. She, in turn, will get him into all sorts of problems, for she claims she is innocent for a crime she did not commit. She wants to prove her innocence and for that she plans to use Dennis.
"Red Letters" appears to have suffered a case of 'direct-to-cable' fate. Bradley Battersby, the director also contributed to the screenplay he wrote with Tom Hughes. The creators borrowed from other films about the same subject. The viewer has an inkling where the whole thing is going and the logic of Lydia's escape and subsequent revenge is stretched to the limit. We have always liked Peter Coyote. He is a versatile actor who had done better before. Nastassja Kinski's Lydia is not one of her best roles.