Save your money for something good and enjoyable

hyped garbage

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Really off the wall made for TV flick appropriately named "Walls of Secret" that plods along for almost three quarters of its running time until we finally get an idea in just what the heck it's trying to tell us. There's this young and very attractive couple Mark & Paige Emerson, Dean McDermott & Nicole Eggert, who rent this spacious apartment in the uppity section of Chicago at dirt cheap prices. Right away you suspect that there's something very un-kosher in all this in that the two Mark & Paige are in no financial position with Mark just starting his job as an architect and Paige and out of work, who in fact never had a job before, lawyer to afford a place like that: Six rooms with a double bedroom & two baths plus a king size living room and a spectacular view of Chicago's skyline that would go from between 3 to 5 thousand dollars a month rent on the open market!It's much later in the movie after a few red herrings are thrown in to divert our attention that we soon realize what all this noise in the walls and bump in the night as well as number of murders or tragic accidents to the apartment houses tenants is really all about. It has nothing to do with the supernatural, the apartment house is at first thought to be haunted, but with good old police corruption, which makes far more sense, and murder involving Mark's dad ex-cop on the lamb Hugh Emerson, Stephen McHattie. It's Hugh who's suspected in murdering, by cutting his throat, his police partner a year ago! That's after he was going to report him to his superiors about the mob gambling racket that he was involved in. The fact that the audience has to sit through almost the entire boring movie until Hugh makes his grand appearance and spices things up puts most of it to sleep before the real action starts.****SPOILERS**** Once Hugh comes on the scene things really get going in that he in fact was set up by his boss Captain Milton, Bruce Gary, to take the rap in an illegal gambling payoff scheme with the Chicago Syndicate that Milton and his fellow corrupt cops were operating. It was Milton's big mistake to try get Hugh to come out in the open in order to shut him up or murder him since was no threat to him and his operation anyway. Hugh was a fugitive from justice who only wanted some monthly cash from his son Mark to pay for his food and rent as well as bar tab and the occasional trips he took to the local casinos and racetracks and nothing else. It's when Milton and his fellow crooked cops that included Carrie & Diego, Sarah Allen & Conrad Pia, started to turns the screws on Hugh's son Mark and daughter in law Paige that it brought the fighting Irish out of him. And instead of playing it cool or safe and laying low Hugh came out into the open to settle things. And that he did with sudden and deadly results!

I'd give this one a "3*," one for each of the leads because they are at least active to look-at, and another because it's a bit fascinating in its mediocrity.I one read a Leonard Maltin review of a Patrick Swayze flick, in which he stated his acting, as usual, ranged "from 'A' to 'B'." I couldn't agree more regarding Patrick, and virtually all of the performances - particularly the two leads - in this movie fit this description/The plot, with its supposed twists, foreshadows and eerie aspects, can be given a grade of "C-," and that's an exceedingly generous grade. (And the old-lady neighbor, who gives the "heroine" forewarnings about her new abode, looks as though she might be the last remnant from one of Vincent Price's classically-corny horror flicks several decades ago.) The flick also appears to have been written and directed by personnel who, if they attended some sort of film school, had grades at this level or below.Not much to recommend - even for "Lifetime."

On the surface, this movie is entertaining enough. It provides some suspense and a decent plot. However, if you're the type to piece together the information and try to understand the characters' actions, you may be disappointed.The tension is enough to keep you interested but not riveted. The story line could have been better developed to avoid the questions that the deeper thinker will find. The plot doesn't get too complicated e.g. faked deaths, etc. But there are enough lies to at least keep you watching to see if you're right about who's telling the truth. And you probably are.Overall, it works just fine for tame, quiet Friday night entertainment.

SPOILERS THROUGH:This was made for television. It was not a bad movie overall but to complex when it didn't need to be. The Story is promising but ultimately goes in a rather ho hum direction. The performers were OK. Paige, our heroin had a certain innocence about her and at least had her own personality. All of the cast were above average but Mc.Hattie was more then OK, he was GREAT as the dad. In fact the whole movie should have been about him. Instead disappointingly, he is only in the Movie for a short time. It's to bad because his character was was the most interesting in the movie.Then there's the story itself. The story seems like it will go in a different direction then the path it takes and the One it does take isn't awful but is very convoluted and many things don't make sense. Ultimately it doesn't rivet one to the television either. I was kind of impatient for the conclusion.To sum up-not a bad film, it's watchable and is decent enough mainly due to Mc.Hattie but really has some plot holes and could have gone in a different direction. I'd say about average.