Road Trip Hostage (2023 TV Movie) User Reviews

Meh.....not good but not totally bad

[deedrala · 4/10 · 1 May 2023]

Road Trip Hostage

I'm the second reviewer here, and the only reason I'm doing a review is to counteract the first overly gushing review by 'lmtearne', who's obviously the lead actress's BFF or sister. RTH certainly doesn't deserve such a glowing review. My main complaint with the movie is the lead girl's flat emotionless acting - nowhere near the glowing praise she was given in the first review. And her "dancing" was more like slow lackadaisical yoga-gymnastics than actual dancing, and totally out of rhythm with the accompanying music. No dancing talent shown whatsoever for someone with such a strong ambition for it.

The story was good and believable, except the part where the hotel clerk not only stood in the middle of the parking lot as an easy target for the criminal to run her over with the stolen car, but she actually turned around with her back to him while making the 911 call ABOUT HIM BECAUSE SHE SUSPECTED HE WAS A CRIMINAL. She seemed smart in the first part of her scene, guessing that he was shady and the girl was in trouble, then she does an utterly stupid thing like that. She was lucky that she was only knocked off her feet and not killed.

I have to note one thing that I realized: the lead actor bore a strong resemblance to a young Malcolm McDowell. And he did a much better job of believable acting than the girl. I realize she couldn't be throwing tantrums and screaming and crying the entire time she was being held hostage, but she showed little to no emotion at all.

I noticed a glaring goof: when Hilary texted Emma just before she was kidnapped, the time on Emma's phone was 2:01 but the time of her mom's text was three mins later, at 2:04. In the next scene, the time on Hilary's phone was 11:38. Very sloppy, noticeable mistake, Lifetime crew!

Like my title says: not good but not totally bad either.

Grade D - 4 out of 10.

Frustrating.

[jessicab-82766 · 2/10 · 30 April 2023]

I have never been in this situation before....but there were many times she could have ran. It's a knife, not a gun. I know she's supposed to be scared and of course, you would be in a real life scenario...but she was not helpless. He had his back turned to her a few times.

Also, the woman working at the front desk at the motel...why would you stand in front of the car calling to report a domestic violence situation? He's going to try to run you over. I get it's a movie, but come on. The actors were okay though.

Anyway. It gets a 2 star rating because it was something to watch on a Saturday night.

Who approved this???

[pnschwert · 1/10 · 24 May 2023]

I don't know why they actually released this. All of the acting seemed like it was high school kids in a school play for the first time. It was so cringey I couldn't turn it off. The main character looked like he was trying to get in character but it was just so bad. It was just all around horrible and so many strange plots. Who would walk a hostage around holding them so they couldn't move? You'd think someone would notice? Or the cops turning on sirens when they were supposed to not approach? THE MOM ON THE INVESTIGATION? Lol if you like watching bad movies this one is for you otherwise you should save yourself the time.

Slow Moving Snoozer

[hoops-53436 · 2/10 · 30 April 2023]

I had high hopes for this movie, but now wonder 'who wrote this crap?' No thrills, no scares, no excitement....just boredom on and on and on. And no cop would ever let the mom of a hostage victim ride along and run up to crime scenes and ruin some evidence. And c'mon, the mom-not the cop- does the talking to the bad guy at the end?

Research shows that this might be the first movie for Veronica Ramirez. If so, it was a very poor vessel for her debut. She looked good early with the dancing and dialogue. I would like to see more of her, but in something that would allow her to show some versatility. Don't waste your time on this boring stinker- I am sorry that I did.

An absolute no

[Davalon-Davalon · 2/10 · 13 April 2024]

There is little in this film that makes sense. An emotionally unbalanced young man (Rick) forces a young woman (Emma) to take him to "the border" because he "accidentally" killed his wealthy father in a fit of rage. While Emma has multiple opportunities to escape or fight back, she doesn't, because Rick is holding her at knifepoint -- a knife that looks like a rubber toy.

This story is interwoven with the Emma's mother and a variety of detectives and police as they try to figure out where Emma is.

There are multiple laugh-out loud moments, despite the actors doing their best.

The best actor in the movie is Lisa Long, who plays the manager at a cheap motel where Rick and Emma spend the night (with neither of them ever having to use the restroom or eat). Lisa has the great face of a character actress; she delivers her lines with the savvy that only comes with years of being a pro, and she gives the movie its only worthwhile scenes (and the reason I rated this 2 stars instead of 1).

A whole convoluted backstory about Emma being a dancer and wanting to give up college, putting her at odds with her mother, making her move in with her best friend (or some friend), where she meets Rick -- this whole story was absolutely unnecessary.

Later, when Rick is getting desperate after almost running over the motel manager, he decides he has to get a new car and accesses his phone. The woman sees him tap in his passcode. Now quite honestly, it's unlikely that she could really see what he tapped in, but, to make it clear to everyone in the universe that she did see what he tapped in, she must tap out the sequence on her leg. Because. That's what you'd do, right?

Then, later, the Emma's mom and one of the detectives question the manager (who was nearly run down, but now looks fine) about which direction Rick drove off in. The manager says with surety, "North."" Since the manager was knocked out on the ground, cold, how would she know which direction they went? This was one of the many laugh-out loud moments in this god-awful joke of a movie.

As the film goes on, the female detective becomes one of the most important characters in the film. It just doesn't make any sense. At one point, instead of immediately alerting the dispatch center, the detective launches into this insanely long story about a murderer who kidnapped (catnapped?) a cat, while the mother stares at her. I mean, it was insane.

Then, while the detectives are having a pow-wow, the mom "sees" "blood" on a parking lot, because she can determine "blood" from ketchup or god-knows what else. This leads her to find Emma's huge black SUV, which she could have seen if she had just looked up. The car is not checked for fingerprints and the detective just keeps telling the mom (who basically has about three facial expressions, and that's pushing it) that "We'll find her soon" -- as if that makes everything okay.

Then we have the big race where everyone is chasing each other, and the rocks to the head (which achieve nothing) and the knives to the throat and the mom who tries to gentle talk Rick into dropping the knife from Emma's throat. Which he does. Emma runs into mom's arms, Rick, on the detective's cue, flings the knife aside (it's obviously rubber or a really cheap-looking "knife") and we are back in a horrid nightclub where Emma has now achieved her dream of dancing on the "stage" of a cheap club while mom looks on with pride.

Although the actors did their best, this was a failure from the first to the last scene. An absolute no.

The lead actress's wooden acting

[lmnclips2 · 6/10 · 5 May 2023]

The other reviews here seem to mention the lead actress stiff acting, and I agree with them. I have seen rocking chairs that were less wooden, and showed more emotion then the lead in this movie. Also according to IMDb, this was her first movie ever, so that kind of makes sense. It's almost as if they found a random woman walking in the streets and asked her if she could be in their movie and she said yes because she really needed the money.

The only good actor in this was 'Rick'. He was very attractive and played the part well. Emma was attractive too, but she was horrible at acting. Everyone else ranged from mediocre to terrible. But I enjoyed Grace Patterson's little cameo appearance near the beginning and at the very end, although she had no lines.

The movie's plot wasn't exactly thrilling or left me at the edge of my seat considering the whole premise. There was not that much action throughout. And like the review by "jessicab-82766" said, Emma had so many opportunities to run away from her captor as he did not have a gun with him, but a knife. And the mother was so stupid to just mindlessly touch stuff that was clearly evidence and getting her fingerprints all over them. I actually yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" at my TV screen during the part where Hillary touches the door handle of her daughter's car. Have LTM characters always been this dumb??

I actually looked forward to this movie before it came out, because the plot looked promising, but I learned not to have such high standards for LTM's. Standards that they could've easily met up with years ago. If you want to watch a movie that has a similar storyline, then you should watch 'Driven to Murder'. That was probably one of the best Lifetime movies from last year.

Also, the full name of the bad guy in the movie was 'Rick Frye', but IMDb gives him the name 'Rick Hoover'. The names of the lead, mother, and Rick's dad were also changed.

Loved it!

[lmtearne · 10/10 · 30 April 2023]

This movie was a really awesome triller! The main actress Veronica Ramirez, did a fantastic job playing the role of Emma. She really put herself into the character and made everything so real! I think she did a better job than some other actresses I have seen before. I am so happy to be one of the first people to watch this movie. The whole thing was made really magnificently and I would definitely watch it again if I get the chance to!!! I loved the part where Emma broke free of Rick and started running away and use the phone to trick Rick and then hitting him in the head with a rock(the hitting with the rock part was just satisfying). I truly believe that Veronica can become a famous actress and amaze the world with her flawless acting.