The federal witness protection program has placed 18,000 citizens in hiding for the purpose of convicting hardened criminals, and the there is an 89% success rate in convictions. It is the devout hope of Carol Peterson and her two lovely children, Alicia and Matt, that they will not be in the 11% failure category.
Life was nearly perfect for Carol Peterson, who was successful in her job. Her daughter Alicia was about to graduate from high school. And young Matt was a star basketball guard. But the nightmare began when Carol was an eyewitness to the killing of an aggressive prosecutor by the drug lord Roger Nahanee. It was at this moment that Carol and the kids were placed in the witness protection program.
An unintended consequence of the film was a nearly farcical set of scenes as Nahanee tracks down the Petersons in both Seattle and Manchester, New Hampshire. There was a clumsy attempt to provide the pretext for the villain discovering the whereabouts of the Petersons when Alicia places a phone call to her boyfriend, Brian Jackson, and Bobby tries out for the basketball team at his new school, and his photo appears on the cover of the local paper when he scores the winning bucket. There resulted the mad scrambling when the family bundles up their gear and frantically tries to outrace Nahanee. Carol's tacky black wig amused the children enough to refer to their mom as "Cruella."
Another place where the film nearly lapsed into comedy was in the incompetence of Mr. Cloninger, the hapless FBI agent, who, at one point, is lectured by young Matt Peterson after a rat in Cloninger's staff is clearly giving away vital information about the informants. Cloninger seems fated to be perpetually holding the bag.
Through it all, the Peterson family is held together by the loving mother. Carol found some levity to buoy the kids' spirits while they were in the pressure cooker. She was one of the few characters in "Family in Hiding" who never looked stupid.
Life was nearly perfect for Carol Peterson, who was successful in her job. Her daughter Alicia was about to graduate from high school. And young Matt was a star basketball guard. But the nightmare began when Carol was an eyewitness to the killing of an aggressive prosecutor by the drug lord Roger Nahanee. It was at this moment that Carol and the kids were placed in the witness protection program.
An unintended consequence of the film was a nearly farcical set of scenes as Nahanee tracks down the Petersons in both Seattle and Manchester, New Hampshire. There was a clumsy attempt to provide the pretext for the villain discovering the whereabouts of the Petersons when Alicia places a phone call to her boyfriend, Brian Jackson, and Bobby tries out for the basketball team at his new school, and his photo appears on the cover of the local paper when he scores the winning bucket. There resulted the mad scrambling when the family bundles up their gear and frantically tries to outrace Nahanee. Carol's tacky black wig amused the children enough to refer to their mom as "Cruella."
Another place where the film nearly lapsed into comedy was in the incompetence of Mr. Cloninger, the hapless FBI agent, who, at one point, is lectured by young Matt Peterson after a rat in Cloninger's staff is clearly giving away vital information about the informants. Cloninger seems fated to be perpetually holding the bag.
Through it all, the Peterson family is held together by the loving mother. Carol found some levity to buoy the kids' spirits while they were in the pressure cooker. She was one of the few characters in "Family in Hiding" who never looked stupid.