Lifetime
Lifetime delivers another gripping thriller, Behind Closed Doors, that is unfortunately deflated by an ending that just leaves you wondering what happened.
Behind Closed Doors stars Dennis Andres as a man named Grant Dreyer who, when first seen, is running over a man in a parking lot with his pick-up truck, approaching the man after the first strike, asking if the man knows who he is, and telling him then he understands why he is doing what he’s doing. After committing the murder, Grant makes his way to a suburban neighborhood and into a house where he begins setting up security cameras and locks on doors, just waiting for the family to show up. First to arrive are wife and mother Morgan (Jenny Pudavick) and son Cody (Jordan Mazeral), unaware of the intruder until he makes himself known to Cody without alerting Morgan. Daughter Lizzy comes home next and while in the kitchen with her mom, Grant finally shows himself, asking who else they can be expecting. Much later, husband Kevin finally arrives from a late day at work to find Morgan and Lizzy at the dining room table with the intruder, who threatens to harm the people Kevin loves unless he follows all of Grant’s instructions. Morgan tries her best to get Kevin to just acquiesce to keep everyone safe. But where is Cody? He’s locked on the upper floor in Kevin’s ‘man cave’, and Grant assures the family Cody will be safe unless they cross him. All Grant needs at the moment is a place to lay low for the night as he awaits confirmation of a pick-up at a designated location, at which time he will leave. But what exactly is he waiting to pick up?
Lifetime
Despite Kevin demonstrating he is not really willing to play along, Morgan keeps running interference between the two men to keep anyone from getting killed. But there are some snags to deal with. While no one has any pressing appointments for the weekend, Morgan does have a brunch to attend with the neighbor ladies, and she assures Grant that if she doesn’t show up, they will make it their mission to come to her. Morgan had also promised lonely neighbor lady Dora some powdered garlic that she had not yet taken to her, and the woman shows up unexpectedly at the front door. Grant allows Morgan to answer it and give Dora the spice, but Dora does not want to seem to leave despite Morgan doing all she can to shoo the woman away. Having had enough of the banter, Grant lunges from behind the door, grabs Dora and snaps her neck, traumatizing the family in the process, and forcing Kevin to help role the body up in a carpet and take it to the basement. The next day, Grant’s contact has still not given him a time for the pick-up, his task apparently more difficult than planned, something about breaking through a security system. Kevin and Grant continue to taunt each other, and at one point Grant surprises Kevin by stabbing him with a needle and sedative just to get him to shut up. Morgan makes it to the brunch and does not reveal anything that’s happening, having to endure the others making snide comments about being happy Dora didn’t show up, and cutting out early which only raised the suspicions of her friend Connie. On her way back to the house, Morgan is stopped by a police car with the officer just advising her to remain vigilant even though they think the killer of the man in the parking lot is five counties away by now. But as time wears on, Morgan is beginning to believe Grant isn’t going to leave and she needs to come up with a plan to save her family. Things nearly get derailed when Connie shows up with a bottle of wine — and there is a jolting scene that feels really out of place — and then the neighbors become concerned that Dora’s dog, Princess, has started barking uncontrollably, with everyone asking Morgan if she’s seen Dora. The cops arrive and Grant takes Kevin to the basement, ties him up and sedates him again, then pretends to be Kevin when Officer Linski comes in to ask some questions about Dora. Grant overplays his role to the point that it seems plenty suspicious, but the cop doesn’t seem to take notice. Things really become harrowing when Morgan sees an opportunity for Lizzy to make a run for it — after a failed attempt at drugging Grant with a drink laced with his own sedatives (which he could smell) — forcing Grant to run after her and Morgan to follow. Lizzie manages to ditch him and Morgan finds her with the help of a neighbor who witnessed the whole thing, and after several days pass they begin to feel that Grant got what he was waiting for and is gone for good. But he’s not, and what he was waiting for is actually the whole reason he was there. He did not pick the Marsh family at random. The reason he killed the man in the parking lot was because he was responsible for the death of Grant’s wife in an auto accident, leading to his daughter being placed in foster care while Grant was in prison at the time. But Grant now reveals that Kevin has ties to Grant’s wife, but is it because he’s a lawyer and was involved in a case representing the man who killed her or is it something else that will have an even greater impact on Kevin’s family? The truth is revealed and Morgan has one chance to save her family … and a year later all is well (mostly) and we are left to assume Grant’s fate, while Kevin’s is pretty clear.
Lifetime
Behind Closed Doors, with a screenplay by Shannon Latimer, is a very gripping hostage thriller with a few gasp-worthy, jump out of your seat moments. The tension builds throughout the story, and you never know if Kevin is actually going to survive since he seems to have made it his mission to antagonize Grant. It’s a nice little twist that allows Morgan to actually interact with the neighbors while forcing her to pretend that everything is fine, instead of just having her make excuses that they’re all sick or something (and she makes it clear if anyone thinks they are sick, they will show up at the door with a pot of soup). You really don’t want to tear your eyes away from the screen, but then all the air is let out of the story in the last few minutes that is set ‘One Year Later’, leaving us to wonder if the one character who did sustain a major injury survived or not. That time jump was a bit of a jolt and totally took away everything the movie had been building up to. I also found the character of Cody perplexing as he seems to be maybe nine-years-old but everyone treats him like he’s five or six. I almost felt like maybe he was supposed to be on the autism spectrum, but nothing was ever specified. It’s also a bit frustrating that Kevin goes out of his way to antagonize Grant, but perhaps once the truth about how they are connected is revealed, we have to look back and consider that Kevin knew who Grant was the whole time (though he never alluded to that at any of the times the two of them were alone together). Director Anjali Nayar does a fantastic job of keeping the story taut and never letting the audience have a moment to breathe, it’s just a shame that it all gets deflated by the coda.
Lifetime
If you want to cast a bad guy for your movie, Dennis Andres is your man. He can play this type of character in his sleep, which isn’t a slam on him, he just knows exactly how to be threatening, menacing, and dangerous no matter the situation. At the same time, he also gives Grant a bit of tenderness with Cody, who perhaps reminds him of his daughter (maybe because of Cody’s age), and he can even let his guard down a bit with Morgan. There is no love lost between him and Kevin though, and Andres just brings Grant vividly to life. Jenny Pudavick is also outstanding as Morgan, who is given a bit of a backstory that allows her to bring some depth to the character, a woman who gave up her career as a counselor to stay at home with her kids in deference to her husband’s time consuming law job. This has made her the protector of the family, but it has also ingrained Morgan into the community more than she would have if she had not quit her job, becoming an integral part of the neighborhood. Pudavick just lays out all of Morgan’s feelings of responsibility in the open, showing her complete devotion to her children, giving some hints that there may be trouble brewing in her marriage, but ultimately being the only person who can save them all. She even manages to keep her wits about her after watching Dora being killed right in front of her. Pudavick’s Morgan is a strong woman not about to play the victim. She even has a nice moment with Lizzie where she tells the girl that she may appear weak by going along with Grant, but she is in fact doing everything she can to keep them all alive. That was a nice touch from the writer, and delivered perfectly by Pudavick.
Lifetime
Chris Hong makes Kevin a hard person to root for because he is always in fight mode from the moment he comes home. He rarely has a calm setting, and even when there are moments of quiet (when he’s not sedated or tied up), you can still see the look on Hong’s face that he’s angry and he’s plotting to take out the man holding his family hostage. But his actions often come off as selfish, putting them more at risk than they need to be, and of course by the final moments we do realize that he had been entirely selfish, trying to hide the truth not to keep the family safe, but to not destroy his own life. Magalie Langrais and Jordan Mazeral turn in some good performances as Lizzie and Cody, making both of the character feel like real kids caught up in some very adult situations, not having the proper coping mechanisms yet to deal with such trauma (although in the end, Cody seems fine while Lizzie definitely has some PTSD). Robin Craig is also wonderful as Dora, totally embodying the loneliness that Morgan describes, clearly showing Morgan that she really needs some human connection, even though she has her little doggie, by the way she just can’t stop talking despite Morgan’s efforts to get her to leave. It is quite shocking and tragic when Grant takes her life. Colton Royce’s Officer Linski is that friendly neighborhood cop that seems to have become a myth, but he also seems entirely clueless to the awkward situation in the kitchen with Morgan and Grant (posing as Kevin). That whole moment would have set off alarm bells in a real-life setting, and I really expected the full force to show up and surround the house after Linski left. But there was a clever explanation for why he didn’t become suspicious — the identity of the killer from the parking lot … is not Grant so there was no reason for him to suspect that Kevin wasn’t Kevin. Alison Mackey also has a nice moment as Morgan’s friend Connie, the one person at the brunch not shown by the director as a grotesque, entitled monster (the scene of them all eating the little finger foods and cakes is quite revolting and really seems to be making a statement about these types of entitled individuals), and it would have been nice if Morgan had been able to truly confide in her.
In the end, the first hour and 25 minutes of Behind Closed Doors will grab you by the collar and not let go, and then it ends with a bit of a whimper that takes all the wind out of its sails. But the performances and direction are uniformly good and it is definitely worth a watch with a big bowl of popcorn.
Behind Closed Doors has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.