Lost Behind Bars (2008 TV Movie) User Reviews

off-putting lead character

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 14 April 2015]

Filmmaker Lauren Wilde (Paget Brewster) and her cameraman is doing a documentary about death row inmates. They travel to Hillsdale, Oregon to film Kevin Reese scheduled to die in a month. She's pushing an agenda and most of the locals are not buying. Kevin was convicted of massacring the Watson family. He was having an affair with the wife Amanda Watson but doesn't remember the murders. Detective Tom Redler is reluctantly assigned as Lauren's liaison with his partner Charlie Quinn. Police forensics Patty Sutton helps out. She starts to believe in Kevin's innocence especially after Redler loses the case file.

Lauren Wilde is too stridden at the beginning. She's very off-putting and no interviewer would push that hard with any expectation of usable footage. The flashbacks are mostly boring and the acting is generally second rate. There isn't much to recommend in this TV movie.

For Paget Brewster fans only!

[Maurice_Rodney · 6/10 · 29 December 2006]

I have a crush on Paget Brewster. I like her face. She has gorgeous eyes and glorious lips. I like her voice. It's sonorous and sexy. She has a great figure. It is a joy just watching her tall frame perambulating across a set. Plus, she is a good actor with excellent timing. Otherwise I would not bother wasting two hours on something as silly as this.

I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it yet. But be warned! You will be disappointed by the implausible plot twist at the end. I don't understand why they went so far afield when they could have given it a perfectly appropriate "B movie" ending. As it is, they stitched on something so contrived that it turned the whole effort into a wretched mess.

Good ingredients wasted.

Were over when I say were over!

[sol-kay · 5/10 · 1 June 2009]

***SPOILERS*** Heavily contrived race against the clock in the of coming execution of local Hillsdale grease monkey and drug addict as well as aspiring artist Kevin Reese, Antonio Cupo. Kevin had been convicted of murdering the entire Watson family including his lover the sexy and cheating on her husband Noel, Ken Camroux-Taylor, Amanda played by Ona Grauer.

With only a month away from his execution date Kevin is visited on Oregon's death-row by film maker Lauren Wilde, Paget Brewster. Lauren together with her cameraman Mark Evens, Doron Bell, are making a documentary about the pros and cons of capital punishment. With Kevin about to meet his maker, via lethal injection, Lauren feels that he's by far the perfect candidate on the subject. As Lauren start to interview Kevin she soon realizes that he's been set up and framed for the Watson murders in the fact that he's too kind and sensitive, especially in his artistic pursuits, to have murdered anyone.

What also convinces Lauren of Kevin's innocence is what she was told by the towns medical, or forensic, examiner Gayle Lerner, Meg Roe, in how the evidence doesn't connect him to the murders! Gayle not only feels that the victim's blood found on Kevin was planted on him by the Watson's real killer but that killer may well be Hillsdale Det. Tom Redler, Robert Wisden. As it turned out, according to Gayle, Redler was having a secret affair with the murdered Amanda Watson, who later dropped for the younger and far more sensitive Kevin Reese, and threatened to kill her and he entire family if she ever left him.

As Lauren gets closer to the truth the time was starting to tick away for Kevin and in desperation the Watson's killer, obviously not Kevin Reese, started to tie up any loose ends that can lead the police to him. He did this by knocking off both cameraman Mark Evens whom he mistook for Lauren, by him driving her SUV, and Reese's attorney of record shyster lawyer Jerry McAffery,Bruno Verdoni.

As it turned out Lauren, with Gayle helping her along the way, did uncover a deep and shocking secret in who murdered the Watson family. But would she have enough time to stop Kevin's execution with the Walton killer knowing every move that she makes in setting Lauren up to be murdered herself! That's before Lauran can both expose the killer and thus prevent Kevin from being put to sleep, with the needle, forever!

Oh.. Save me!

[pettyfog · 3/10 · 29 March 2007]

It's an amazing effort by cast and crew.

The story was a first time effort; Good -if hackneyed- plot, awful execution. The screenplay was a first time effort. Passable dialogue, awful everything else! There was a third writer collaborating but he obviously asked to be uncredited. I've never written anything for public perusal and I wouldn't want people thinking I wrote the scenario either.

It's really too bad. For a chick channel production, the thing wasn't bad, especially the acting was competent, in fact saved it from being turned off. But the pointers were so obvious that the heroine looked like an idiot for not running straight to the state Attorney General after a couple days looking at the facts.

But that would have ruined the story wouldn't it. The second problem was the heroine continuing to go alone into what were perilous situations when it was obvious the killer was a psychopath and didn't seem to care whether or not he was caught.

Lost Behind Bars-The Obvious isn't What You Think ***

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 31 March 2007]

Interesting film about a reporter with her camera man. They are both doing a documentary about condemned prisoners and come across someone waiting for execution who is really innocent.

Unfortunately, they are working with a town who can't wait for the execution to take place as well as a head detective who is hostile in the preparation of this documentary. The killer is facing execution for wiping out an entire family. A love affair with the wife had gone awry.

Trouble is that it is quickly determined that the detective had an affair with the dead woman as well. The bodies begin to pile up including the camera man and the lawyer for the condemned prisoner.

Naturally, there is a coroner in the film who is too sweet as she contemplates retirement to Costa Rica.

The surprise ending is just that even though the film is contrived. Nevertheless, it's interesting because it appears so obvious that the head detective is the culprit until the very end.

Sluggish Woke Drama

[lavatch · 3/10 · 8 December 2019]

"Lost Behind Bars" features as the protagonist a liberally inclined filmmaker visiting tiny Hillsdale, Oregon, as part of a film documentary on death-row inmates. A native of New York, Lauren Wilde graduated in film studies from NYU. Now, she will add to her resume the credit of private investigator as she suspects that Kevin Reese was framed for the murder an entire Hillsdale family and must find the evidence to exonerate him.

There is no doubt that Ms. Wilde is a woke filmmaker. But the more important question is whether or not the makers of "Lost Behind Bars" are also driven to espouse leftist perspectives in this ninety-minute melodrama. And the answer is a resounding yes.

The police are depicted in the film as incompetent, corrupt, and even guilty of felony offenses. The liberally minded political system of Oregon has bent over backwards for Ms. Wilde to have complete access to the crooked Hillsdale cops, homicide records, and easy access to a convicted murderer in prison. City slickers like Ms. Wilde, who hails from Albany, the capital of New York, are deemed superior to the rubes in the country like the rednecks depicted in Hillsdale.

Structurally, the film foundered with far too many flashback scenes, wherein plot details could have been summarized, as opposed to reliving the mundane experiences. It appeared as though the filmmakers were angling for a noirish style, but most of the moody scenes seemed routine, such as the office of the sleazy lawyer who made such a mess of defending Kevin Reese. When Ms. Wilde visits the office of the attorney McAffrey, the dark lighting and eerie score were all-too predictable.

More noirish elements of lust and greed figured in the convoluted narrative of "Lost Behind Bars." But the most preposterous choice was in the film's surprise ending. It defied all logic that for personal financial gain, the perpetrator would butcher an entire family, then go on a killing spree to cover up the evidence. Even the performers seemed to struggle in the final ten minutes to deliver their woke lines much like a news anchor at MSNBC.