"Escape Clause" is a slick made-for-television thriller that is filled with melodramatic twists. An insurance executive named Richard Ramsey (Andrew McCarthy) receives a troubling phone call from a man who claims that Ramsey's life is in danger and that his wife is plotting his death. But it is the wife who is subsequently murdered.
The plot is filled with hints that suggest anyone in the cast could be the murderer-extortionist. Police Lieutenant Farrand (Paul Sorvino) is the detective investigating the crime. One of the most nefarious of the characters is Ramsey's father-in-law, the powerful former deputy director of the CIA. The one genuine ally of Ramsey is Leslie Bullard, effectively played by Connie Britton. Leslie was attracted to Ramsey when they were students. Is her motivation to help him genuine? The film finds a way to make almost every one of the professions appear as corrupt. They include the insurance industry, psychiatry, the CIA, and the police force. Virtually every character associated with those fields of endeavor is sleazy and unethical.
One of the staples of nineteenth-century melodramatic theater was the cliché device of a victim strapped to the railroad tracks as the train is hurtling toward him or her on a deadly collision course. The writers of "Escape Clause" have somehow found a way to bring back that old convention for a thrilling ending that wraps up the mystery in a tidy package.
This is a "guilty pleasure" type of film that includes suspense, but also some laughs, as it brings back the popular melodramas of yore.
The plot is filled with hints that suggest anyone in the cast could be the murderer-extortionist. Police Lieutenant Farrand (Paul Sorvino) is the detective investigating the crime. One of the most nefarious of the characters is Ramsey's father-in-law, the powerful former deputy director of the CIA. The one genuine ally of Ramsey is Leslie Bullard, effectively played by Connie Britton. Leslie was attracted to Ramsey when they were students. Is her motivation to help him genuine? The film finds a way to make almost every one of the professions appear as corrupt. They include the insurance industry, psychiatry, the CIA, and the police force. Virtually every character associated with those fields of endeavor is sleazy and unethical.
One of the staples of nineteenth-century melodramatic theater was the cliché device of a victim strapped to the railroad tracks as the train is hurtling toward him or her on a deadly collision course. The writers of "Escape Clause" have somehow found a way to bring back that old convention for a thrilling ending that wraps up the mystery in a tidy package.
This is a "guilty pleasure" type of film that includes suspense, but also some laughs, as it brings back the popular melodramas of yore.