Cortechba Overrated

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

muertos For a TV miniseries based on a true crime thriller, you'd expect standard movie-of-the-week fare. And The Sea Will Tell is instead a pretty taut thriller, well-written, well-acted and artfully put together. I'm convinced that this film isn't more well known because it had the misfortune to air for the first time the very night the ground campaign began during the first Gulf War. If you were watching CNN (and who wasn't), you missed it.Rachel Ward, a highly underrated actress, is slightly miscast as the naive "hippie" waif Jennifer Jenkins, but she makes the best of a pretty meaty role, and her chemistry with Richard Crenna is spot-on. There's less chemistry between her and Hart Bochner, but his performance is excellent--he's certainly come a long way from his cartoonish portrayal of a slimy executive in Die Hard ("Hans...boobie...would I lie to you?"). The whole series, however, is stolen by James Brolin and Deidre Hall. The interweaving of flashbacks to the characters' time on the island with the courtroom scenes is skillfully done--something that, incidentally, Buglioisi failed to do well in the book this film is based on.There's also some attention to detail here, and even (GASP!) some approaches at mise-en-scene. The Palmyra scenes, though colorful and lush, have a strange darkness and malevolence about them. I especially like the moody magic-hour sky in the oft-shown sequence of Ward and Bochner boarding their neighbors' yacht on the crucial night, and the rusty, moldering remains of military hardware that lurk in the underbrush. When contrasted with the chic mid-80s San Francisco in which the courtroom scenes take place, you definitely get the sense that the Rachel Ward character has come a long way. You don't see a lot of that kind of subtlety in a TV feature.This is a story that probably should have been a Hollywood feature. Barring that, however, it's still an excellent film. Recommended.

Robert J. Maxwell SPOILERS.Of course Rachel Ward gets off, otherwise Bugliosi would never have written the book, which I don't think I've read. But I believe Vince may have blown it this time around.Hart Bochner is easy to categorize as what used to be called a psychopath but now has a longer, fancier name in psychiatry. He has all the criterial attributes. He's got a sense of humor, he's attractive to women, lives in the unfolding moment, has multiple identities, is easily bored, shows little in the way or foresight or an ability to plan for the future, is impulsive, "lives off the land" in more ways than one, carries guns, and manipulates people readily. He's a done deal.Rachel Ward, as Jennifer, Bochner's girl friend, isn't really much different from the kind of unthinking partner that these kinds of guys pick up along the way. They're kind of attracted to rogue males. Ward has lived with two convicted murderers and she lies all the time. She doesn't tell Vince about her first boyfriend/murderer because, "If I had told you, would you have taken my case?" No comment from Vince, who lets slide the fact that she hasn't told him, even AFTER he's taken the case. No comment from the director or writer either. The remark is taken as, well, maybe not entirely OKAY -- but understandable, you know? I mean, why not lie to your attorney if it will get him involved with you? It's even more understandable when that real-life attorney, the author of the book, is looking over the screenwriter's shoulder as he's reconstructing the dialogue. Ward shows the same kind of carelessness with facts and social dynamics that a good partner for a psychopath would. She lies to the FBI about the fate of the rather crummy sailboat that she and Bochner were in. She not only fibs, she comes on to one of her lawyers in the courtroom where everyone can see it. Little things like stealing someone's yacht and trying to disguise it don't bother her at all.Would murder bother her? Nobody knows because we have only her word for what she was up to at the time they took place. And there are a lot of ways in which she does things that hint at innocence. Why would she help Bochner dump the bodies in the lagoon where they can be found, when they could have buried them in the middle of the Pacific? Why should she interrupt her arrestor with protestations of innocence when he was Mirandizing her? Bugliosi brings these and other incidents up in his summation, claiming that either she was terribly stupid or that these incidents indicated "consciousness of innocence." My "gut feeling" is that he blew it. It WAS really terrible stupidity not "consciousness of innocence". Bochner and Ward act like two people born with no frontal lobes. Everything they DO is stupid in the sense that it's not well planned. What do they care if somebody digs up a couple of dead bodies in the lagoon a year or two from now? They plan on selling the yacht and adopting new identities. They will have melted into the crowd. And anyway, who cares? A year or two is a long time.Palmyra, along with Wake and Johnston Islands, were pretty much uninhabited until before World War II when they became outposts against Japanese expansion. Of the three, Palmyra was often said to be the most beautiful, the kind of tropical paradise people dream about. Of course there were some inconveniences. The many rats for instance. They were brought to the island by humans. So were deceit, the destruction of part of an ecosystem, garbage, dope, and murder.

cmr12 This made for TV movie is based on one of my favorite books, by the same name, and out of all the true crime books I have ever read, I still feel at odds as to whether the person being tried was guilty of murder or assisting a murderer or not.As other people have already said, it is a story of two very different couples who sailed to an island looking for adventure/escape. The younger couple consists of a hard man in his 30s running from the law, and a girl in her late 20s, who is totally dedicated to aiding his escape and usually going along with whatever he wanted. The older couple are in their 40s, upper middle class, attractive, and their yacht, the "Sea Wind" is a marvel, designed for a couple who would want to exist very comfortably for long periods at different ports.The younger couple were annoying to the older couple, lacking in supplies and begging at times, always needy. They brought along annoying dogs, were always running out of supplies. Although the older man Mac is not fearful of them, the woman really is, and desperate to leave. They have quite a few clashes, despite Jennifer's(the younger woman)attempts to make peace and be friends.Then one day Buck, the younger man, tells Jennifer that the older couple have "disappeared" - he thinks they got lost fishing and are gone. According to Jennifer, she was not with him the whole day and heard nothing. They sail back to Hawaii on the "Sea Wind assuming they are dead, and are eventually arrested.The rest of the movie revolves around Jennifer - was she an innocent who believed her boyfriend's Buck's story and heard nothing, or was she a part of the murders, or an assistant? The character Jennifer is very baffling, lying to achieve certain desires and totally truthful in other areas. Even acting at times like she didn't care what her attorney Bugliosi did or didn't do. She is a complex character, sentimental but sensible, wonderful at chess but deluded in judging character.So did Jennifer help commit these murders or know about them? Read the book/watch the movie. I still can't figure it out.I wish this were on video, so I could see it again. I thought it was well-cast with Richard Crenna as Bugliosi, James Garner and Deidre Hall play the older couple, and Hart Bochner and Rachel Ward play Buck and Jennifer. The only problem I have is that I didn't think Ward was quite right for the cuddly, spacy, cautious Jennifer. I don't know who I would liked to see cast, but is was not her.All in all, a 9 out of 10.

Eve Sander An able cast and good direction do a creditable job in this film based on famed attorney Vincent Bugliosi's non-fiction book, which describes both the crime and the trial (he represented the defendants). But more than anything else, it's the story itself that will keep your eyes glued to the screen for three hours. Yuppie couple sail to an isolated mid-Pacific island. Later, so does a hippie couple. After that, the hippie couple are arrested in Honolulu in possession of the yuppies' boat and a weak story. Investigation does not turn up the yuppies, their bodies, or the hippies' boat. Some time later, back at the island, a box washes onshore that contains the bones of the yuppy woman. The details are too numerous and mystifying to list here! The "plot" may seem to meander and include many digressions -- but that's because it's from real life! Even at three hours (made for TV, two instalments) the film can't include all the baffling elements. (You really should get the paperback!) If you stick with it and pay close attention, you'll find it not only entertainment, but also a challenge: What really happened? Who did it? This puzzle will haunt you, keep popping back into your mind, long after the movie ends. (Get the book!!)