ThiefHott Too much of everything

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

jamesraeburn2003 Perry Mason is invited to the wedding of his niece, the pop idol Kaitlynn Parrish (Heather McAdam), but the big day is ruined when her uncle, Alanzo Hawkes, bursts in hurling insults at her father, Max (Ronny Cox), and brandishing an envelope supposedly containing money. "This will show everyone exactly who you are", he screams before he is knocked out by security and taken into the study to recover. Later, Kaitlynn is discovered standing over Hawkes' body with blood on her hands and a knife at her feet. Lt. Brock (James McEachin) arrests her for the murder and her motive is believed to be connected to her talent agent father who is under investigation for allegedly embezzling his clients' money. Perry, however, believes her to be innocent and sets out to find the real killer...A strictly standard entry into the seemingly never ending series of TVM's based on the classic 1950's-60's courtroom drama series Perry Mason. But, on the whole, it is no less enjoyable for it and certainly fans of the show will love it and for those who have never watched it before it is as good a place as any to start. The only part that doesn't really work is the central theme of Mason representing his niece on a murder charge. It is meant to install an emotional element into the story, but it doesn't really have that much of an effect because in virtually all of these films the client is usually an old friend or acquaintance of Perry's. It seems very tired and repetitive and all too often we ask ourselves "How many old friends can he really have?"The story was written by Brian Clemens, best known as one of the key creative talents behind the seminal British fantasy series The Avengers, and he laces his script with enough intrigue and plot turns to keep murder mystery fans happy. Burr is his usual impressive self as the ace defence attorney, and as usual, he goes all out to defend his client, and in the course of that he exposes other wrongdoers responsible for completely unconnected crimes to his case in order to get at the truth. In this case, as well as clearing his niece for murdering her uncle, he also clears her father of embezzling money from his clients' funds and sees to it that the real culprit faces justice.There is some entertaining action comedy in the scenes involving Mason's attorney - detective sidekick, Ken Malansky (William R Moses), who reluctantly accepts the help of Kaitlynn's fiancé, the soap star Gary Hawkes (Adam Storke). In this feature, Malansky discovers that the murder victim was involved with a gang of ruthless gangsters whom he double crossed in order to extort money from the FBI over bootleg cassettes. The gang mistake him for the murdered man and plot to kill him since he knows too much. Hawkes employs his acting skills as a fake gangster in order to save his life in a hilarious scene. They overpower his would be assassins and Hawkes is a little miffed that Malansky seems ungrateful. "Yeah, I am, Pacino couldn't even cut it" says Malansky in a not entirely successful bid to show his gratitude. You can see that he is slightly embarrassed that he had to be saved by an actor and he never likes people interfering with his cases.There are some interesting faces amongst the supporting cast, including Ronny Cox, Diane Baker, Linda Blair (who shot to fame as a teenager in The Exorcist) and the rock legend Stephen Stills (Crosby Stills And Nash) puts in a special appearance.

lucyrfisher I was enjoying this, but Tivo failed to record the big reveal! I liked the scenes in the club, and the young fans of "Kaitlynn". 1992 fashions are also worth a look. Linda Blair is good as one of the suspects. And Kaitlynn's fiancé (a soap opera actor) comes good as he channels Al Pacino to thwart some Bad Men. I'm from the UK, so I was frustrated at the way many of the actors dropped their voices and mumbled so I missed the dialogue. Had to look up IMDb to find out what the victim was called (Warren Fox? Lorne Hox?). Perhaps the sound quality wasn't terribly good. Another high point - the over-the-top decor in the office of the record company exec. One weird note: the exec, and many of the dodgy or music biz characters, wore tiny, lame pony tails.

brett5355 What I found interesting and different in this one was that the courtroom scenes were all at a hearing instead of a trial. Not sure if hearings are usually this detailed, but different nonetheless. The main thing was that I amazed my wife by picking out Stephen Stills in a cameo role. Would love to know the story of how he got in this one. Thanks to Flix for showing this series often and part of the fun of watching this one and all the others is to see the use of the "latest technology" at the time, especially the "mobile phones" that are bigger than some laptops now, and the computers that are in just about every scene in the police and lawyers offices.

Mark-129 An interesting entry in the "Perry Mason" TV movie series. This time, Perry has to solve the murder of an unsavory interloper at a celebrity wedding. Of course, the accused, his "niece", is not the true killer. What makes this case above the norm is the courtroom fireworks and the insinuations throughout that Mason has very personal reasons for solving this paticular case.