Lifetime
Lifetime forgoes the ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ story for what amounts to a pastiche of supposedly real stories to create The Widow’s Payback, a movie very heavily promoted but is it ultimately worth the time?
The Widow’s Payback stars Bianca Lawson as dental technician Amanda Bibbs, a woman madly in love with her husband Jesse. Amanda has gotten a promotion and after an innocent comment from the dentist about Jesse taking the day off of work to be there, it is soon determined that Jesse is out of work — Amanda has not told anyone in the office — and is a bit humiliated that his wife is now the breadwinner. It gets worse when a shaggy guy comes out of nowhere and starts berating Jesse for some owed money, so Amanda steps up and gives the guy $500 out of the cash bonus she’d just received … further emasculating Jesse. The guy is allegedly some sort of recruiter and before he knowns it Jesse has a job driving a private bus, shuttling senior citizens back and forth to the local casino (Amanda later learns that the guy is actually working undercover trying to nail the bus company owner). On Halloween, for no real reason other than to have a reason for someone to knock on Amanda’s front door, Jesse is talking to his wife on the phone as he cleans the bus. He discovers a panel in the floor with some boxes inside. He opens a box — we never see the contents — and tells Amanda the company is dirty. He hangs up, and later long after the trick-or-treaters have gone, there comes that loud knock at the door. Thinking it’s more little costumed urchins, Amanda answers and Jesse’s body falls to the floor, a plastic bag over his head. Amanda sees a blue car drive off but is clueless as to who would want to kill her husband. After talking to the police, Amanda does some digging into the bus company and finds the address and the owner’s name. What else would one do at that point after feeling the police are dragging their feet but adopt a new identity, move into an apartment near the business, buy new clothes, get a new ‘do, and stalk the guy at his local church? Amanda becomes Zora Smith, attends the church service (coincidentally, Amanda had been looking for a church she could call home), makes eyes at the guy, and chats up Reverend Gordon, who invites ‘Zora’ to attend the ‘Chicago Stepping’ class that the man in question leads in the church rec room. (Side note: this seems like an entirely inappropriate dance class to be holding in a church.)
Amanda quickly ingratiates herself with the man, who tells her his name but everyone calls him Slide, so his real name is inconsequential at this point (and doesn’t merit a mention on IMDb or in the movie’s credits). They share a dance, and he is intrigued unaware that she is like a spider luring a fly into its web. As the two become closer, Slide’s head of security, Melina, takes an immediate distaste to Zora because she obviously has eyes for Slide as well, even showing up at a dance event dressed to the nines, engaging in a sort of dance battle with Zora for Slide’s attention. Zora wins, but it only make Melina more suspicious of the woman. As Zora and Slide get deeper into the relationship — and Amanda even allows herself to hit the sheets with the man she believes killed her husband, which leads to all kinds of guilt — Melina begins to dig, breaking into Zora’s apartment to see what she can find. She comes up empty but does take a container of dental floss with Amanda’s office name on it. Perhaps this could be the clue Melina needs. In fact it is as she gets a sudden toothache which enrages her, and the only dentist she can find is the one on the dental floss. After having a procedure done — she is clueless about how the anesthetic works — she leaves the office with her mouth full of cotton. And then … she sees Amanda’s picture on the wall. She frantically calls Slide and tries to tell him Zora is a fraud but she can’t speak clearly with the cotton in her mouth, so she hangs up, spits it out on the office floor … and texts her boss. Slide and Zora, however, are at a major event and Zora notices some shady business going on as Slide handcuffs a briefcase to his wrist. She calls the detectives to tell them what’s going on — and they had previously had a sit down with her to put on record that she is not working for them, they cannot help her, and any evidence she may find would be totally inadmissible and could damage any case they have against Slide — and makes her move to grab the briefcase once he emerges from the meeting. But Slide gets Melina’s text and the jig is up. Now Amanda is in a race for her life to get away from Slide and Melina (Amanda recognizes her car as the one that sped off after dumping Jesse’s body), hoping desperately that the officers will catch up to her before Slide does.
The Widow’s Payback is allegedly based on ‘true stories’, plural, so this is really just a pastiche of ideas all stitched together by writer Avery O. Williams to create a fictional story. It has a familiar premise of a wronged person seeking revenge, or in this case ‘payback’, but it commits the unforgivable sin of being boring. Even at 90 minutes without commercials it still feels much longer (and we never know if this takes place over days or weeks, and it’s never clear how Amanda explains her absence from work right after her promotion). Of course it has to take time for Amanda to work her way into Slide’s life to gain his confidence, but there’s just never anything interesting about their relationship, and there’s never a sense of danger building until near the end of the story. There are a couple of other glaringly off-kilter aspects of the script, the main one being the Chicago Stepping classes at the church, and Melina’s completely over-the-top, unprofessional behavior. Her tantrum in the dentist’s office is so over-the-top it’s ridiculous. One of the best aspects of the script, though, is the character of Reverend Gordon, a woman who knows more than she’s willing to say out of turn, but giving ‘Zora’ the guidance she needs to make the right decisions about Slide. Director Steven A. Adelson, who has some decent credits on his resumé, just takes a languid approach to this story, keeping it free of any tension, and when that tension does come at the end, you’re at a point where it’s hard to muster up any interest in what’s happening. We do get a nice payoff though when Slide finally catches up to Amanda, so that moment was at least a bit rewarding. Otherwise it’s just a slow march to the inevitable conclusion. (There is also one glaring continuity error, at least it seems to be, when ‘Zora’ first arrives at church in her eye-catching red dress, but when she leaves she’s wearing a tan trench coat. Was she carrying it during her arrival?)
Lifetime
The actors do what they can with their roles. Bianca Lawson really makes us believe her Amanda is totally in love with Jesse. She is a strong, confident woman but then we have to question if this person truly has the resilience to completely adopt a new persona and put herself in so much danger, especially since she has zero patience with the police. But Lawson does make the attraction to Slide also feel authentic, but when she turns into an action heroine at the end it makes you wonder where that character got all of those skills (we do know that Jesse taught her to shoot a gun, a skill which comes in handy with Slide to pretend she doesn’t know even though she carries a cute pink pistol in her purse). Lawson is believable as both Amanda and Zora, and she works hard to make the situations interesting. Jojo Ahenkorah is wonderful as Jesse, and it’s tragic that we don’t get to see more of his relationship with Amanda. He makes Jesse a truly upstanding gentleman, someone you’d like to be friends with, so it really does hit hard when he is murdered. Kheon Clark has to make Slide intentionally stand-off-ish since he’s involved in a lot of shady business. He might be handsome but he doesn’t have a lot of personality because he has to remain so guarded. It might come as a surprise when he says he’s close to putting a ring on Zora’s finger since it’s hard to tell how he really feels about her (and truly, Melina would be the better match since she knows all of his business … certainly not a woman you would want to scorn). It’s a character you really can’t get to know, so it’s hard to tell how dangerous he really is (though he has a tendency to ‘send home’ people who get in his way).
Gigi Saul Guerrero often feels like she’s in a different movie. Right from the start she’s a bit over-the-top when ‘Zora’ makes her first appearance at Slide’s office, trying to assert her dominance by slamming her feet up on the desk. She fails to intimidate. Her reaction to the twinge of her tooth is a bit too broad, and that tantrum when she discovers Zora’s true identity is an eleven on an absurdity scale of ten, bring totally unintentional and inappropriate laughs to the scene. The dance battle with Zora is also a bit much as the three basically take over the event (mind you, this is in a church rec room). She does have moments of real menace which makes Melina feel truly dangerous, but the writing for the character and the acting decisions made, perhaps by Guerrero and/or the director, just don’t do her any favors. We do have to give a special shout out to Noah Danby and Lane Edwards as the detectives who, with some actually decent writing and excellent performances, give some realistic portrayals of law enforcement officials. They are both quite calm and personable and professional with Amanda, even as it is she who comes to them with buckets of attitude. They do their best to reason with her on an emotional level to let them do their jobs, and even when she accuses them of doing nothing, they reject that notion and ask her to just let them do their jobs because this type of investigation can take time. Rushing into things would not bring justice to anyone. It’s refreshing to see these actors make their detective characters feel like real people. Best of all is Catherine Lough Haggquist as Reverend Gordon. Just the way she speaks, delivering words of wisdom from the pulpit and as a friend to ‘Zora’, Haggquist makes the Reverend so warm, someone you can trust, someone who gives you just enough with her words to allow you to make your own decision instead of trying to tell you what to do. She knows there is more to Slide than most people can see on the outside, but she also knows it isn’t her place to outright accuse hum of being a bad guy, because in church he isn’t and everyone seems to love him (although one still has to question her judgement about allowing those dance classes to take place in her church — she hasn’t attended one yet so perhaps she’s in the dark about all the gyrating going on under the Lord’s eyes). Haggquist just gives a lovely performance, making Reverend Gordon someone anyone would love to have as a best friend.
Overall, The Widow’s Payback is a mildly entertaining revenge thriller with some decent performances. It’s just hampered by a script that takes its time getting anywhere and needlessly makes the Slide character overly-complicated to the point that he just becomes a blank slate. Some parts of the movie are too silly, while some of the actors elevate their parts above what’s been written for them. It is a mixed bag in the end, but it leads up to an exciting, if rushed finale. Not awful, but only worth your time if you have nothing else going on.
The Widow’s Payback has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
The Widow’s Payback | Official Trailer
Lifetime