Pretend You Don't See Her (2002 TV Movie) User Reviews

"Pretend You Don't See Her" -- I wish to hell I could

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 24 October 2010]

Well, well, more cheezola from Grosso-Jacobson, from their ice pick music, trying to pass off Toronto as New York, and bad casting.

Very quickly, the story concerns a real estate broker, Lacey, (Samms) who witnesses the murder of an accident victim's mother. The mother believes it was no accident, and finds her daughter's diary pages to prove it. She gives those pages to Lacey before she dies. The killer is after Lacey, so she is sent into the witness protection program, where she tries to figure out what happened so that she can come home.

"Pretend You Don't See Her" is particularly funny. First, we have the beautiful Emma Samms, as British as they come, who has a sister with no British accent. Right off you know the attention paid to the casting. I don't know about the Mary Higgins Clark story - I like Mary Higgins Clark's novels. Her stuff is a fast read, but Agatha Christie she ain't. I mean, did she really have her main character, played by Samms, act like a MORON? Lacey is in witness protection and her sister begs, pleads for a hint as to where she is. She won't tell anyone. So Lacey (now pretending to be named Alice) gives her a hint which enables her sister to figure out her location immediately. And true to her promise, she doesn't tell anyone. She doesn't have to. She buys a newspaper from that city and has it sticking out of her purse wherever she goes so that EVERYONE can see it.

If only that had been the only dumb thing, but it wasn't.

I gave it a 5 because I got to hear a bunch of Italian tenor arias - Una furtiva lagrima, Di quella pira, La donna e' mobile, and Celeste Aida - playing in a character's restaurant.

Badly made

[Kingslaay · 5/10 · 5 January 2023]

I was very underwhelmed with this film from start to finish. Even the attempts to link the film to the title was just poorly executed.

Lacey gets on your nerves with her idiocy and exposing her loved ones and herself. She lacks in the brains department. As soon as she became a target she exposed her sister and niece to danger by visiting them, later she gave up the location of where she was hiding while under witness protection. Also the motive was never really fully explained. Why was Heather killed, what was the story behind these murders.

This is yet another example of a poorly adapted film from Mary Higgins Clark.

Lacking

[budikavlan · 6/10 · 24 July 2002]

Really odd TV-movie from the Mary Higgins Clark plot factory. Oddball international cast does pretty well (for the most part); I don't know if the use of British, Canadian, German, and American actors was a deliberate sop to the multi-culti crowd or just a random occurrence. Anyway, the mystery is quite suspenseful at times, though some of the "twists and turns" are a bit pat. The overall impact is hindered, however, by Emma Samms's strange performance. She was apparently struggling with her American accent: some of her line readings are a bit off, and she uses an inappropriately breathy voice in some scenes that really saps them of tension. There was no intrinsic reason for her to use an American accent anyway; the character could just as easily have been a Brit. Also inexplicable is the (creepy) attention paid below to the little girl--her role is actually small.

Painfully bad

[King_man · 3/10 · 19 October 2014]

I've certainly seen worse movies but this is definitely in the bottom tier. The principals' performances were neither terrible nor great though in a lesser role, Danielle Bouffard's was certainly "fingernails on the chalkboard" for anyone old enough to have memories of that experience. Others have commented on Samms's accent but that was neither here nor there compared to the bizarre behavior of her character. Chased by a known killer, why would she not give the one police officer she trusted any hint of her whereabouts? When she finally figured out what was going on, why didn't she share this info with the police rather than going for confirmation on her own and risking it dying with her? Obviously, because that's what the script called for in the mistaken belief this would build tension. All it did was cause a headache from palming my already palm flattened forehead at the disbelief in the character's stupidity. If you need some neck exercise, this would be OK to listen to while trimming your pet's toenails. You'd be continually burning off calories, shaking your head in disbelief though you could certainly end up with neck muscles that looked like they had too many steroids given how many times they'd get exercised.

So bad - avoid it

[DJFirth · 1/10 · 19 October 2014]

I can't believe I watched the first half of this movie. The acting was adequate, but the characters are so dim-witted.

The lead character, who's in witness protection, whines and sobs from the beginning because she's "as good as dead". Not because the bad guys might kill her but because she can't tell her sister and friends where she's at. She tells anyway - it's been 2 weeks of sheer torture after all. No sister - except a short call once a week. No niece. No friends. And a small apartment!. I couldn't manage any sympathy for her.

The police are just as dim-witted. They won't follow leads or investigate people who contact her sister to find out where she is. I didn't watch how it ends, but I know it will end.

WTF?

[AnnPanders · 1/10 · 13 December 2022]

If you want to watch a movie about a woman in Witness Protection and think it will have tension or you would even care what happens to her, don't watch this.

I kept watching because I love(d) Emma Samms from her Dynasty days. But I wished her character would get knocked off by the hitman, and fast.

Anyway, Emma/Lacey/Alice goes into WP without even changing her appearance. Within a few days she is whining and crying about how her life is destroyed. Huh? Think of it as a vacation or something, and stop your crying. She apparently read the book on how NOT to behave in WP and took notes and employed all the NOTs and did everything she could to be discovered practically. I fully expected her to sell real estate, so she could have done a better job at being quickly discovered. She said and did so many ultra stupid things that I was cringing the entire time. I felt no sympathy towards her and thought if she was that stupid the world would be better off without her. Again, she's whining the whole damn time about how her life is ruined, and she's only been in WP for what? Two weeks? Uggh. She then starts playing Nancy Drew and brings down the bad guys. And got home in time for her niece's birthday party too!!!

This is a completely ridiculous story. I'm mad I watched it. If you have any sense at all, you would be questioning all of her behavior and actions. Or I hope you would. People are out to kill you and you do nothing to stay anonymous, not even putting on a wig, telling your sister where you are when likely her phone is being tapped. And whining that the police are doing nothing to protect her all the while. When she's doing everything she possibly can to get herself murdered. So frustrating.

It's so awful, I wish I could say it's comical. I wish. The only thing that would have made this movie hilarious is if the script went right off the Mary Higgins Clark rolodex type story plots and our heroine was killed in the end and then they rolled the credits.

Avoid this.

Absolutely Fabulous Movie! It made me cry, smile and laugh!

[kim_h_lyn · 10/10 · 13 January 2002]

A very well put together movie! I've been looking forward to this movie for a few months now. I first heard about it on young Dani Bouffard's (Bonnie) fan club. The movie was very well written and interesting. The acting was superior! Dani showed a great reach of emotion and touched my heart in many scenes. The scene in the hospital and on the phone with Lacey was very touching! When Bonnie was shot at, it was so believable and powerful that during the commercials, I was praying that Bonnie was okay! I think this little girl has a very bright future ahead of her, as I heard she was voted Sweetheart Of The Year for 2001 by the fans! Outstanding job to those who chose Dani for this wonderful role!

Save your time!

[mdean-06045 · 1/10 · 20 August 2021]

We're too far into but, you can still watch something else. This is a joke for a movie.

I'm pretending I didn't watch this

[GladtobeGrey · 1/10 · 29 April 2019]

Yet another made for TV film I wasted my time on. Why bother to cast a British actress and then direct her to use an American accent? Bizarre... Also if her character was in witness protection why didn't she change her appearance in any way whatsoever? Surely that's the first requirement. All in all just another 'woman in peril' vehicle.

Movie Featuring The Worlds Worst Actors

[blonde_ambition · 2/10 · 8 February 2005]

As it happens, Pretend You Don't See Her is on the TV right now. However, I had to turn it off and I've come straight on to the IMDb to write this review for it.

Pretend You Don't See her, in the right hands, could have been very good. It's about a woman who is the only witness to a murder, and is then hunted by the killer. In the right hands it could have been good. This was crap though.

It has a very amateur feel to it, and is very obviously a TV movie, a very bad one. The thing that makes it so totally unwatchable? The acting is atrocious. Seriously, it is so bad. Emma Samms, in the lead, is awful, and though at times she is very good, most of the time her line delivery is dreadful.

And I've noticed on a lot of the reviews, people are praising Dani Bouffard's performance, the little girl who played the daughter. Well, reading around, it seems Bouffard has a stage mum, so my only explanation for her good reviews is that maybe her mum got all her friends to say nice things, because in reality, Bouffard's acting is the worst I've ever seen. Child actors are never expected to be that good, but Bouffard is by far the worst. If she wants TV work, she should do commercials were all she's got to do is smile and sat nothing. I mean, who gets shot and smiles as they lay on the ground unconscious? And in the scene that follows her acting is seriously a commercial for how not to act. It is atrocious.

In all, Pretend You Don't See Her is watchable if you aren't put off by things such as the worlds' worst child actor, but if you are the sort of person who notices the bad in movies as well as the good, you will seriously want to steer clear of this one, because they somehow seemed to have rounded up the cream of bad actors, not a single cast member seems to have gone into any depth with their character.

Also, if you are an actor, I beg you not to watch this. You really don't want this sort of acting to rub off on you.

Laughable

[SpookyPie88 · 1/10 · 23 May 2005]

This made-for-TV drama is terrible, basically. That one word sums it up. The acting is appalling, mixed with a barely there plot this film out stays its welcome two seconds in. I watched this film after a someone told me how laughably bad it was and they were right. The whole thing comes off like something a first year film student would churn out, a student who hadnt paid any attention to anything said that year.

And what is all this fuss about the little girl in it? She was probably the worst actress in this film, despite all the hype over her she cant even deliver a simple line without it sounding like its being fed to her. I'm sure there was another girl the casting crew could have hired instead of this poor child who was clearly only there as a result of a stage mum. The only way she can have all these good reviews is if shes putting them on here herself.

Stay away from this film, trust me. It is seriously a waste of time, there are far better better things you could be doing with your time like watching paint dry or counting grass in a meadow.

This film contains a charm but we must suspend our disbelief too much

[Dr_Coulardeau · 8/10 · 17 July 2007]

The pattern of the previous films of this series by Ms Clark is partly broken. The main character is not a radio anchorwoman but a female real estate agent. We are not dealing here with a serial killer but with a real hit man hired by a dirty soiled trafficker who appears slightly ambiguous because his secular but not criminal boss, who he cheats, is Italian, or has some kind of an Italian name. But it does not have anything to do with the mafia. The whole business is a cover up operation for a first murder that the police sloppily classified as being an accident. There the pattern is not broken. The police is still sloppy. What's more the police does not succeed where a simple woman, by taking risks and using her intelligence, baits the hit man and the rotten egg out of the basket in which they were hiding. The suspense is OK though of course we know from the very start what the stakes are and we are only missing the name of the man who is ordering these murders. The police will arrive just on time when it is needed not to get into more complicated business. And yet the whole film is built around a leak in the police protection of the main character and we will never know how this leak happened and where it came from. The police is always sloppy with Ms Clark, but Ms Clark is also sloppy on some basic logical elements.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

Real Estate Agent on the Run

[megan_chatterton · 5/10 · 5 December 2021]

A woman witnesses murder and has to go on the run. Some odd characters and awful music, but entertaining enough. I did wonder if what was up with the brother-in-law and there are some amazing recoveries.

Danielle Bouffard's Talent Is Limitless

[usafrog215 · 10/10 · 20 July 2002]

At only 7 years old, Danielle Bouffard is already making a name for herself in the world of acting. In "Pretend You Don't See Her", Danielle shows every range of emotion. Her talent is limitless and I'm anxiously awaiting the release of her next 2 movies,"My Name Is Tanino" & "Touching Wild Horses", along with any future projects.