Winter of Frozen Dreams

USA 2009
produced by
Millie Stanisic, Milka Stanisic, Anthony J. Vorhies, Omar Peraza (executive) for Em & Me Productions, King Isthmus Films
directed by Eric Mandelbaum
starring Thora Birch, Keith Carradine, Brendan Sexton III, Leo Fitzpatrick, Dean Winters, Scott Cohen, Dan Moran, Adam Ferrara, Colleen Camp, Derek Cecil, Tony Cucci, Marsha Dietlein, Ed KErshen, John O'Creagh, Jeff Burchfield, Christie Sanford, Kellee Sweeney, Ken Goewey, James A.Walsh, Justin Alvis, Aya Cash, Michael De Nola, Pete Postiglione, Adam Greer, Traci Hovel, Rich Lounello, Gerardo Rodriguez, Daniel Asher, Tom O'Rourke, Steven Randazzo, Jen Jones, Yvonne Perry, Alyssa Gilbert, Christy Lee Hughes, Kelly Sullivan, Jim Ireland, Terry Rabine, William Swan, Byron Nilsson, Peter L.Frisoni jr, Nicholas Barber, David Breitenstein, Erin Dahl, Terry McKenna, Mary Pennisi, Charles Petraske
written by Michael Graf, Michael Caughill, John Besmer, Eric Mandelbaum, music by Kenneth Lampl

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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It all starts with Gerald (Brendan Sexton III) leading the police to the dead body of Harry Berge (Dan Moran) he and his girlfriend Barbara (Thora Birch) have hidden under the snow several weeks ago, after they found the body in her apartment (or at least they claim they did). When detective Lulling (Keith Carradine) starts investigating, he soon finds out that Barbara was by no means the goodie two-shoes student everyone has figured her for but a prostitute in the employ of one Ken Curtis (Dean Witners), and the more Lulling digs, the more dirty details come to the fore, like the fact that dead Harry Berge was not only the modest factory worker everybody took him for but had a stake in Curtis's racket, and Barbara was actually his fiancée and the sole benificiary of his $ 750,000 insurance policy - and she has actually talked about poisoning him ...

During all this, only Gerald sticks with Barbara, even though he was the one who reported everything to the police in the first place - but he claims he did it to help her start a new life, and she claims she understands. Then though he catches her cheating on him with none other than her pimp Ken curtis ... and from here on it gets weird: Gerald writes a confession that he has killed Harry Berge in Barbara's apartment, and she had nothing to do with it. Then he is found dead, poisoned, and he had dinner with Barbara the night before, where she could have easily poisoned him. In the end though, she is convicted for the murder of Harry Berge (to which Gerald confessed) but not the murder of Gerald, even though the two men died exactly the same way ...

Not a good film, but not a total loss: The performances of at least Thora Birch and Keith Carradine are pretty good and carry the film, the non-linear structure of the story turns the whole thing in an interesting puzzle, and Eric Mandelbaum proves to be a competent enough director to keep audience interest throughout, despite some very talky sequences.

But that said, the film suffers from its script, and the reason for this is the based on a true story-banner: Like so many other films based on a true story, this one doesn't even try to tie up all the loose ends, ever so often resorts to pure speculation, and features a ridiculously bad ending. The argument for all this is probably that the true story this is based on did not provide the film with anything more, the argument against this though is that in that instance, one shouldn't have made a movie out of it and instead invested some original ideas to make up a more plausible murder mystery.

Truth to be told, I have seen worse, but then again, that's not really a reason to watch this one, is it?

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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