Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Every judgment is relative to something else. I was unhappy with the film because I expected more, based on a review I'd read. I'd expected more of a police procedural. Instead, it's the usual story of a young girl kidnapped, raped, and otherwise degraded by a smiling young maniac who drives her from her home in Kansas to Wyoming, while he quotes Robert Service. ("A bunch of the boys were whooping it up/ in the Malamut Saloon.") I wanted action, not fancy egghead LITerature! We can believe most, if not all, of her suffering. God knows we see enough of it. Sara Canning, as the real-life victim Anne Sluti, is beaten unconscious, bound with duct tape, blindfolded and teased, sexually violated, half drowned, and made to eat an oatmeal cookie. We don't learn much about James Van Der Beek, as Tony Zappa, except that he was raised by his Bible-thumping grandma, he is a genuine imbecile, and has been a bad boy all his life.Anne Sluti, on the other hand, is a good girl. She must be, otherwise there might be shades of gray in the movie, which we must avoid at all hazards. The point of the movie is to make the audience weep with sympathy and hate the perp. We don't want them to think. There are endless close ups of Anne Sluti's mother's anguished face. The actress, Diana Reis, seems to have been chosen for the role precisely because the default expression of her features seems to be "agonized preoccupation." And I could almost hear, in my mind's ear, the writers wishing ruefully that the real-life heroine could at least have had a more proper name than "SLUTI". I mean -- after all. Couldn't she have at least been given a decent name? Like Angelica Primrose?Some of the story, though it's supposed to be real, I simply can't swallow. The villain, Tony Zappa -- that's a proper name for a heavy, and it must have made the writers glow with satisfaction -- forces his captive to make a phone call home, claiming that she simply decided to take off on her own and she wasn't kidnapped. She tells the waiting police, who are taping every word, that "it was time for equality vacation." The cops twig to it at once. It's not a slip of the tongue, not a parapraxis, it's a clue. "Equality." And one of the states next door is Wyoming, whose motto is "The Land of Equality." So that's where she is now -- in Wyoming. A thousand far-flung dots are connected in an intant. I don't believe it. Do you? You have never seen such suffering. Except in every other movie ever made about young women in jeopardy.

Anne Sluti (Sara Canning) is a 17 year old girl in Nebraska who gets kidnapped by a crazy Tony Zappa (James Van Der Beek). LeVar Burton plays police detective Mike Timbrook.It's a slow moving Lifetime movie. The kidnapping is compelling but the story just drags along for far too long. There isn't enough depth in the story. James Van Der Beek isn't menacing enough. He just doesn't act crazy well. Maybe the investigation shouldn't be half the movie. Maybe if this was a tough character study of Zappa. Maybe it should be just a two person play. Maybe if the production value was more than the standard TV movie.

The acting is quite superb, when it comes to the two main characters ... unfortunately, the movie will most likely hinder James Van Der Beek's career ... much like Sleepers and Hallow Man marred Kevin Bacon's career. The public glorifies its heroes, but once that hero joins the dark side ... the public moves on, in search of a new hero. Actors need to be a lot more careful in the roles they choose, because the remainder of their careers depend on the choices they make! There are far too many victims in America ... portray a predator in one of these type movies and you lose a whole slew of fans ... specially if you portray more than one! Believe this, playing Ted Bundy did nothing positive for Mark Harmon's career.Both leads are extremely powerful as portrayed by Sarah Canning & James Van Der Beek ... I was very surprised to find that LeVar Burton, from Star Trek NG, played the part of Mike Timbrook. LeVar looked so different, I did not recognize him ... but his acting was spot on!

I can only assume this was "based on real events", as the whole story could have been told in 20 minutes. Unfortunately, it lasted much longer. Long stretches of stupidity compounded by boredom. The lack of depth was astonishing. (Did they ever speak to ANYONE that witnessed the abduction?) James Van Der Beek's career has apparently found his level, and perhaps he is at minute 14. The most intrigue in the whole mess were the clues our abductee would leave in her phone calls. But it only took once for LeVar Burton to say "play that back" to realize he was going to crack the code each time. If you didn't see every event coming up the street, you are movie-impared. Unless you are forced at gunpoint (and even then, perhaps take a chance the gun isn't loaded?), avoid this long, anti-climactic, poorly acted piece of drivel at all costs.