(NASSER ENTERTAINMENT (90 minutes/Unrated); 2014)
This movie (which, apparently, was originally released in January 2009 as DESPERATE HOURS: AN AMBER ALERT) is one-half police procedural, one-half infomercial for the Amber Alert System and… one-half AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL cautionary tale, one-half Lifetime movie melodrama. So, that’s… what? Five-eighths of what this movie’s about. That means that the other two-sevenths of the flick are all about Tom Berenger, who – of course – starred in the greatest movie ever made (make that “The Greatest Movie Ever Made”), RUSTLERS’ RHAPSODY (who you gonna believe… those stuffed shirts at the AFI or yours truly?).
Alright… seriously, AMBER ALERT… is co-written and co-produced by reserve police officer Joseph Nasser, so he knows what he’s talking about. Of course, without everything else (teen angst and teen relationships that would embarrass Stephenie Meyer; good looking but woefully misunderstood kids, creepy looking but woefully misunderstood three-time-loser bad guy, highly driven but woefully misunderstood chief of police; horribly dysfunctional family dynamics), this movie would be a very dry educational film for police academy cadets. I’m not gonna kid you; there’s plenty wrong with this movie (mostly in the editing and an overtly melodramatic script) but… I found myself engrossed in the story. I mean… I knew how the thing was gonna play out, I just wasn’t sure how we were gonna get there. I think the fact that someone with police training had a hand in writing and producing the movie gave it a more realistic feel – at least outside of the histrionics heaped upon us by a couple of truly over-the-top performances and one “better check her pulse… she may be dead” performance. So, here’s the who, what and why about the good, the bad and the ugly of AMBER ALERT: TERROR ON THE HIGHWAY:
Berenger stars as Edward Larsan, the newly paroled loser who, determined to take back what was his (wife, daughter, house, beer), begins his new life by robbing some campers, stealing a car and holding up a convenience store (his haul is two bottles of booze, a carton of smokes, a handful of money, a bouquet of flowers and a rag doll belonging to the clerk’s daughter). He shows up at his ex-wife’s (Dana McLoughlin) door with the flowers and the doll for his daughter… it just happens to be her birthday… her 18th birthday. Rebuked by his ex, Larsan takes to the road again to clear his head. A blow-out seems to be the last straw but, thankfully, he’s still got the booze. Because that fixes everything, right? While drowning his sorrows at a local lovers’ lane kinda teen hangout sorta place, Larsan watches as a couple of girls pull up, hoping to run into a couple of cute guys. These girls have just what ol’ Larsan needs… and, we all know what that is, right? Yup, you got it: A ride. He snatches the driver (Jessica Parker Kennedy) out of the front seat, telling the other girl, Debra (Genevieve Buechner), to get to the back of the vehicle… or else. A lot of whimpering ensues, as the first girl’s mouth and eyes are duct-taped shut and she’s led away, to be duct-taped (man, that stuff sure is handy, huh?) to a fence. Before Larsan can do the same to Debra, another vehicle arrives on the scene: A truck containing Pete and Katie (Tyler Johnston and Britt McKillip). Katie is upset that her mother won’t allow her to go to Italy with her friends over spring break; Pete is pretending to be sympathetic… hey, he is a 17 year old boy, after all. Larsan introduces Pete to his weapon, takes the kid’s money and his girl (after duct-taping him to the steering wheel of his truck and threatening to come back, find him and kill him if the cops are called). But, what 17 year old ever listens to their elders? Certainly not Pete, who somehow manages to dial 911.
An incredulous dispatcher (BJ Harrison) takes the call, prudently deciding that “better safe than sorry” should be the ruling axiom in this instance and dispatches (thus, her title) a squad car. Enter: Police Chief Geiger (played by Torri Higginson, who’s performance is so laconically laid back, it makes Cesare, the somnambulist from THE CABINET OF DOCTOR CALIGARI look like an excited chihuahua by comparison), who agrees with dispatcher Carla that it’s more than likely a prank. Nonetheless, she asks to be kept informed, as any good chief of police would. The cops are shocked… shocked, I tell you… when they find the 911 caller duct-taped to his vehicle. They eventually find the other driver and her duct tape. At this point, Edward Larsan is in possession of a (second) stolen vehicle, this one with the added feature of two teenage girls – one of them only 17 years old – duct-taped and cowering in the back floorboard. Back at the make-out rendezvous, Chief Geiger pulls out all of the stops: Since one of the girls is still under-age, she calls her superiors to get the okay for an Amber Alert. As she’s jumping through some rather obnoxious hoops, Larsan is just discovering the error in judgment of kidnapping two teenage girls. And, I’m not talking about their incessant giggling and air-raid-siren-level squealing whenever their favorite song comes on the radio; nope, upon hearing that an Amber Alert has been issued after the carjacking and kidnapping, he realizes that he may have, indeed, managed to cook his own goose. He curses and beats the steering wheel as one girl whimpers in the back and the other plans his demise and their escape. Needless to say, except for some truly bad acting and unintentionally humorous dialogue, hilarity does not ensue. That’s where I stop telling you what comes next because I don’t wanna blow the ending for you. Except this: In a totally bizarre plot twist/secondary storyline, Chief Geiger has an estranged son (Alexander Mendeluk) who is – I am not making this up – dating Debra but, as far as I can tell, the little light bulb of recognition never goes off over anybody’s head that these people have a connection. So… there ya go: AMBER ALERT: TERROR ON THE HIGHWAY ain’t great but, it ain’t totally without some merits; view at your own risk.