Live Once, Die Twice (2006 TV Movie) User Reviews

Live Once, Die Twice-Don't Die But See this Just Once **1/2

[edwagreen · 5/10 · 25 May 2009]

Lifetime films also seem to have that constant common denominator among them. A lot of women often don't realize what they're headed for when they wed. Such is the case with this offbeat thriller.

A fishing trip with a fellow guy turns supposedly tragic when an explosion occurs and it appears that both have been killed.

Imagine when the FBI shows up and informs our widow-Kellie Martin-that her cute husband wasn't what she thought he was. The latter was in the smuggling business. Further revelations reveal a go-go dancer as his second wife and the two women team up to find out what's really going on. They're threatened by the guy who has been ripped off by "their" husband.

In this film, you anticipate some more irony, especially that the team helping the girls are dishonest themselves but this never occurs.

The ending is what is deserved but needed to be more substantive.

Kellie Martin Is So Good

[kupcr · 6/10 · 22 August 2020]

This thriller is one of those that make you want to watch a few minutes and turn it off, but I'll give Kellie Martin's Nicole Lauker a chance and glad I did. It's one of those thriller's that have a sort of cliché plotline. I can't give too much away, but in this story, an actor named Martin Cummins plays Evan Lauker, a supposedly hard working Real Estate agent and you'll find out something about him later during the movie and he dies in a boating accident. You discover later that he's hiding a secret and the movie gets interesting. "Traders'" star Bruce Grey plays a bounty hunter and Sadie LaBlanc plays Lucy. Great scenery, but you're always surprised where the story leads. It's ok and worth watching once.

The Platium Boy and the Pole Sisters

[lavatch · 5/10 · 17 December 2020]

Evan Lauker was part of a multi-million-dollar scam in which platinum bars were secretly made and stolen from their place of manufacture. Evan and a couple of confederates now plan to sell them on the black market.

Evan has also been busy on the romantic front. He has two wives, Nicole and Zoe. When he is about to complete his big deal, he fakes his death twice. The two women bond over their "deceased" husband whom they know is a con man. The majority of the film is their search for him in Montreal with assistance from a bounty hunter.

While "Live Once, Die Twice" had good potential for a noirish thriller, the film faltered in the home stretch. After finally locating Evan, Nicole makes the inexplicable choice of forgiving him and believing his lie that he was working under cover for the state department. She makes this decision even after a group of thugs threatened to kill her sister and mother, all because of Evan.

Nicole's blunder inadvertently leads to the death of the kind bounty hunter, Earl "Mac" MacDuff, who was so devoted to the women. More collateral damage comes when Zoe is shot and seriously wounded by Evan.

While the narrative scripting was sloppy, the most intriguing relationship was that of Nicole and Zoe. The latter worked in a strip club where she first met Evan, who went by the name of Luke Ravena. Zoe uses the expression "sisters of the pole" to refer to the camaraderie of women in a strip club.

Nicole thereby becomes an honorary sister, as the two women courageously seek to thwart the thing they share in common: the platinum boy who took both of them for a ride.

Good mystery, better toward end

[vchimpanzee · 4 September 2007]

At the start of the movie, scenes are shown from what we are later told is a platinum refinery.

In the next scene, Evan and his wife Nicole are naked and he is kissing her all over. She is going to miss him when he takes a fishing trip, but he is determined not to let her go.

Evan has been traveling a lot in the past couple of years, and it really bothers Nicole. The Long Island couple can afford the finer things in life, such as a fishing boat with Nicole's name on it. But she would like him to be home more. Selling commercial real estate does seem to require sacrifices.

At the last minute, Dugan calls Evan to say he has been in an accident and can't go on the trip, so it will just be Evan and George.

In the middle of the night, a cop visits Nicole. This has to be bad news. It turns out the fishing boat blew up and there are two bodies. It will take DNA testing to determine whether Evan is one of the two.

The FBI gets involved because the boat explosion suggests drug dealing. Dugan asks Nicole to meet him at a strip club, because he has news about what may have happened. Nicole wants answers, so she goes in search of them on her own. She has to do this with the help of her best friend Lucy (whose role is brief), because some bad men want their 5 million dollars and they think Nicole knows where it is.

The search involves a stripper named Zoe and a bounty hunter and former cop named Earl MacDuff, known as Mac, who drives a huge RV despite current gas prices.

There is quite a lot of excitement and even some humor in the second half, and some amazing plot twists.

The big reason to watch this movie is Bruce Gray as MacDuff. He is quite a character, and very funny considering this isn't a comedy. Cindy Sampson as Zoe is enjoyable too. Martin Cummins also turns out to be a capable actor. And the actors playing the FBI agents are pretty good.

I couldn't believe Nicole was the quirky sister of the teen with Down's Syndrome. I didn't see the very beginning, so I didn't know that was Kellie Martin until later. She sure has grown up. She's quite pretty here, and while she was better in "Life Goes On", she has her good moments here. I'm not sure fans of family-friendly TV would approve of some of her behavior here, even if she was married.

Montreal is a beautiful city. As proof, right after one of the characters makes this statement, a gorgeous blonde walks in front of the camera. This brings to mind an important reason for straight guys to watch this movie. All the women with lines (except for the female FBI agent who looks like, but is not, Halle Berry) wear low-cut tops or nightgowns most of the time, and all of them try to show as much skin as possible. Occasionally, they do wear long pants. Nicole is shown getting undressed for a shower, and then getting out of the shower. Now, whether this is a sign of low quality, I'm not sure. But the pretty girls do make the movie more enjoyable.

The violence here is not excessive. But there is enough shooting to be concerned about. No explosions, at least not in the version I saw, but I've never heard of editing out an entire explosion. Several car chases add to the excitement.

I thought it was pretty good.

With luck you can sleep through it if you are somehow forced to watch this exercisein lazy writing and thinly veiled lame politics BS being injected.

[shalimar-4 · 2/10 · 10 February 2020]

Well despite having2 acrtresses that later in their careers learned to actually act their performances here were.. lacking shall we say and cmbined with bad writing/directing I doubt it would matter. I fortunately have seen newer works with Cindy (Private eyes where she has become more polished over the years but is still carried by Jason's skills IMO) and Kellie whom I more recently caught in "A Christmas Ornament" where her skills obviously were much improved. The 10+ yrs between this and most of the newer material I've seen with either Cindy or Kellie in has certainly helped both gain experience and skill from such. (Some get experience but never improve their skill or lack thereof regardless)

But to be fail the writer of this movie is obviously more concerned with typical unimaginative "twists" aka plot A, sub-plot B, with a load of BS trying to obfuscate the political crap from the writer(s). And sadly more of the typical unrealistic action sequences written by those that are absolutely clueless about reality

example dialog by a supposed cop walking 2 "rough looking thugs" into a station.

~~~ "Nice bunch of guys.

• Well, that's what happens when

a country has real gun control." ~~~~

Reality however is in Canada the gun control laws are so poorly written (intentionally) they are 95% focused on control and punishment of the law abiding firearms owners and the only part in the "'firearms act" explicitly written to aim at actual ad guys has never been used in court yet (25+ yrs later) No I'm not joking.. its sadly 100% true (Given the actual aim of c-68/c-71 from the mid 1990s thats not a surprise for anyone that was actually paying attention)

Now as for the action sequence as well .. yet again typical of someone that would hove a flat out lie like the above dialog into a script is proof they know nothing about firearms or the actual laws in reality.

Warning SPOLIER ALERT for anyone that can't predict the absurdly obvious.

Nearer the end of the movie there is a gun fight between the bad guy and the PI (Mac) the women had hired. A LONG running battle.. which in and of itself is very unrealistic (real life gun fights between only 2 people typically are over in less than a min.)

But in the grand hollywood tradition this "gun battle" goes on and on with both sides firing off a pile of shots each.. not once ever reloading (aka Rambo style ) despite the fact that both are using REVOLVERS which the majority of which are 6 shot capacity (and the highest semi-common capacity model was not present here only holds 8 (and we can safely eliminate the 10/12 shot .22 types since no one realistically would be using that as a sidearm)

Also as to the abve injectio of the writers lame attempt to claim "real gun control" for Canada.. the big bad guy obviously was still armed regardless of those laws (FAIL) and the PI which I didn't catch if hes supposed to be Canadian or American. However in either case legally he would NOT be armed so yet another FAIL in the writing. (IF he is Canadian he would need an ATC to have a sidearm and those are basically non-existant and no PI's are NOT armed in Canada.. and if he was an American he woul be disarmed to enter the country (even most cops that are visiting are NOT allowed to be armed while here) and if he was not in adherance with that section of the law it would again make him a bad guy with a firearmillegally. so FAIL again.

Now granted this is a lower budget made for TV movie and we all know hollywood in general is not known for getting things right. But given even the lowest budget shows can at least make an effort to get things right and be more realistic.

Yes I am a well qualified source for this subject before you ask. I also have helped on more than one production I worked on in keeping such facts more accurate and mostly its not that hard with a lil effort. The sad fact is its extremely lazy writing/directing in most cases.. since even some of the better produced shows get garbage like this included..

Not to mention the never ending idiot mistake of calling a magazine a clip.. they are NOT the same thing! Getting that small fact straight alone would help a lot for realisim and accuracy. And don't even get me started on some of he most pathetic farces in this regard like the tripe "supergirl" /facepalm

Anyhow if you are bored to tears and /or have brokenlegs and no modern remote control then maybe you will suffer through this movie.. but with luck you will be spared and can sleep through it instead.

There are worse.. but the bad writing and blatant BS is way too prevalent to give this one more than 2 stars (one star alone for not having uwe boll involved)

Not Convinced

[carolynocean · 3/10 · 15 May 2021]

I tried to get into this movie , but really , I felt one step ahead of it all the way.

And I dont mean that in a cocky way , just that I think it was a very weak storyline, been done several times before.

Wife discovers husband was not who she thought he was after his supposed death, if in fact he is dead at all ? And so the story begins ................................. I did'nt think that Kelly Martin was right for the part , I really thought that her acting skills were not that good, lines delivered stiffly and sometimes awkwardly.

There was no great mystery here at all, in fact the whole thing was very , very predictable .

I did enjoy the scenery , Montreal looked beautiful !

Ms. Martin appears to be maturing as an actress.

[headhunter46 · 7/10 · 26 October 2009]

My wife and I first became aware of Kellie Martin in the TV series, "Life Goes On." We liked her immediately. She was fortunate to play the intelligent, realistic character. Someone with integrity whom you knew you could count on.

Then again in the series, "Christy" we saw more of the same personality. A young woman dedicated to the teaching of children in the rugged and somewhat backwards environment of the Appalachian mountains. Facing some old superstitions and deeply entrenched beliefs with unrelenting determination she stands her ground against some very intimidating people and circumstances.

In this movie, Kellie has given the best performance I have yet seen. Mild spoilers here, nothing to ruin the movie for you. She is most convincing in her quest to learn what happened to her husband who should have been on a boat that blew up. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. She gets between the FBI and some very dangerous people who threaten to kill her and her whole family but she doesn't know why. Along the way she meets some very interesting and even humorous people. She has to dig deep down to survive this mess. The ending has a twist or two that should be satisfying.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

A seven rating from me is high.

Fabulous with great twists

[beckernj33 · 8/10 · 14 January 2020]

Fabulous movie with some really good unexpected twists that can jerk on your emotions. It was definitely worth the watch.