Primal Doubt (2007 TV Movie) User Reviews

What Happened?

[statuskuo · 4/10 · 8 December 2014]

This movie is really Lifetime cheap. It may've started out with a great premise, but quickly demotes itself to shoddy soap opera.

It is not at all completely unwatchable though. Janine Turner, despite some previous reviews of her aging, is perfectly fine for the role. And does her best with the material, as does Costas Mandylor. But, as you watch movies like this, it reminds you that like professional athletes, sometimes you see a shadow of their greatness and just feel a bit sorry that the game has moved on without them.

Look, it's not easy making a movie. But you have a decent cast. My guess is that the director or producer seems to have a very bad grasp of the English language. The dialogue is really stilted. At some point (as I've been on set) it seems they may've even been given line readings. It's that stiff.

A poor who-dun-it.

Holy smoke this is bad

[Lollylovesmovies · 3/10 · 13 March 2022]

The acting was atrocious! From decent actors. I don't know what happened. The story could have been good but it doesn't matter because the acting was so bad. It was like a watching one of those cheap movies where you have never heard of any of the actors, not a one, and they made it in someone's grandma's house. It's like that. Atrocious. Lol.

How old is Turner anyway?

[guilfisher-1 · 22 October 2008]

For certainly she looks long in the tooth in this film. Janine Turner is constantly in over the hill make-up you wonder what her real face looks like. Even when sleeping, getting up in the morning, taking a bath - always the makeup. Too much eye shadow and mascara make her eyes look like a raccoon. And constantly when she cries, and that is often, it runs and she looks like she has two black eyes. Then there's the blush and that lip gloss. In bed? What must her pillow look like in the morning? And what her poor husband, played well by Costas Mandylor, must do about what smears on him when she kisses him. It's like kissing a wet oil painting.

The story is obvious and performances so so. Maeve Quinlan, also in loads of makeup plays the best friend; Jamie Rose, in low cut dresses, plays her doctor and Amanda Fuller, the only natural looking female in the bunch plays the daughter. It seems Mr. Mandylor is surrounded by women with tons of makeup and low cleavage dresses. Why is it that all these dames have to show their breasts? Is anything new now a days? I mean doesn't acting also enter their minds? If they can manage to stop wearing push-up bras and tight clothes. This is a poor R rated example of the typical female on LMN. Once in a blue moon you get real talent and looks and less sex.

Not that good

[nightroses · 1/10 · 4 June 2021]

The reviews posted by other people must've been daydreaming or watching another film because their reviews don't match what I saw. This was very dull in places, and its geared towards reversing expectations. The actual villain made no blind bit of sense. I mean why did a qualified doctor and therapist murder this man who her patient was planning to meet? It would only make sense if that was the woman's jealous husband, who snooped on her computer activities. Making the therapist a killer didn't answer why she murdered the woman's best friend and editor. The writers just wanted the viewer to think someone was the killer, but to surprise everyone, made it an obscure character who didn't have any real reason. Poor film making and dumb story.

Decent TV Movie Thriller

[ali6969uk · 6/10 · 18 April 2008]

I caught this on Sky One the other day and initially started watching to see how the lovely Janine Turner looks these days (still scrumptious!) and kept watching to see how things would turn out.

She is a wealthy Romance Novelist and her Husband is a film Producer, played by Costas Mandylor - looking a bit heavy compared to his usual well built look. She is bored with her Marriage and lifestyle and meets a guy online at a dating site.

I don't want to give anything away suffice to say it is a "Thriller" and is better than a lot of these made for TV films but certainly no masterpiece.

If you are into Thrillers and happen to see this scheduled it will be worth checking out.

An OK film to watch when nothing else is on

[ashphoenixrising · 6/10 · 3 July 2011]

This film was your typical murder mystery film. It had some twists and turns, but was also pretty predictable. I had my suspects narrowed down to 2 people and one of them did turn out to be the killer. The film tries half-heartedly to throw you off throughout the film by suggesting other possible killers but I just didn't find them believable. I will say that I was surprised on who was murdered initially, because I would have thought it was going to be someone else from the description and opening scene of the film. I watched this film because I have been a fan of Costas Mandylor in other films mainly the Saw series, Sinners & Saints, and Sub Zero. I think Costas does an excellent acting job in this film as well. I also think the cast was fair for the most part. However, I do think that Janine overacted. The rest of the cast was believable. The writing in the film itself was not done well. It was a good premise and I would watch it again sometime on a boring afternoon, but I don't see it being one of my favorites.

Interesting Thriller

[hmcusn294 · 7/10 · 3 July 2010]

Do my eyes deceive me? Did someone complain because an actress wore makeup in a movie? I would wager that there isn't one in Hollywood who looks as good waking up in the morning as they do while playing their roles in a movie.

Janine Turner is a drop dead gorgeous woman and a good actress, not to mention a great American, and she played her character well in this movie about a bored wife reaching out to another man and having everything go wrong. It isn't the greatest movie of this genre by any means, but it is fun to watch and holds your attention from beginning to end, specifically because of Janine.

I'm going to buy the DVD if there is one so I can get it out every now and then and watch it again.....and again. It is well worth watching, especially if you like Janine Turner.

Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on here!

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 26 November 2009]

**SPOILERS** With her marriage on the rocks bored and neglected housewife and love & romance writer Jean Harper, Janine Turner, has been going on an on-line dating service and got involved, through the internet, with widowed architect Travis Freeman, Nick Kirazis, who like Jean is also looking for a soul-mate to spend the rest of his life with.

Meeting the handsome and unattached Travis for the first time Jean falls madly in love with the sensitive and thoughtful architect not so much because of his good looks and sparking personality but in the fact that he personally laid out the blueprint and had build his dream-house that's the envy of the entire upscale L.A suburb that he resides in. With Jean later showing up at the Freeman house she finds Travis dead on his easy chair with his throat slashed! It doesn't take long for the local police to find out that Jean was the last person to see Travis alive or first, besides his killer, to see him dead making her the #1 suspect in his murder.

We in the audience all know that Jean is innocent of murdering Travis but her husband the workaholic TV commercial producer Chase, Costas Mandylor, is quite another matter. Moody and suffering for attacks of manic depressive outbursts Chase could very well have murdered Travis if in fact he found out that he was having an affair, even if it was through the internet, with his old lady who he had been ignoring for years because of his non stop and never ending workload. It soon turns out that Travis' past may have had a lot to with with his murder in that his wife Amanda, Rea Ritke,was driven to suicide some six years ago.

The movie gets really interesting when whoever murdered Travis takes aim of Chase, eliminating him as a suspect in Travis' murder, by trying to run him off the road and off a cliff in order to murder as well as possibly shut him up! There's also Janine's good friend as well as book publisher Holly Blake, Maeve Quintan, who also ends up getting murdered by what's obviously Travis' killer when she was in the process of finding the real reason behind Travis' murder and Chase's brush with death. This has the police on the case Detectives Riggs & Conrad, William Allen Young & Freda Foh Shen, completely stymied in just who's behind Travis' murdered and, with what had since happened to both Chase & Holly, what were the real motives behind it?

***SPOILERS*** As things turn out it may well be Jean's $300.00 an hour psychiatrist Dr. Marianne Thorne, Jamis Rose, who holds the key to what's behind the reason for the Travis Freeman murder, and everything that happened after it, but due to her doctor/patient relationship with her client Jean Harper she can't make that public, even to the police, without having her license revoked! This leads to the the movie's surprise and bloody ending where the killer comes out into the open to finish off Jean whom he was after all along.

Not much of a murder mystery but the unintentionally bad acting especially by the overly powdered and made up, with makeup & mascara, Jean Harper in her being completely out of in, not quite knowing what dangers are awaiting her as well as her family and close friends, makes "Primal Doubts" more then worth watching.