I agree with so many people here about the absurdly quick turnaround and wrap up at the ending, and also about the faux pas anyone who had been in the military would notice. The first thing that shocked me early in the movie was a photo of the missing hero/husband in uniform giving a totally unacceptable salute with his wrist bent. Hallmark, if you're going to do military movies, please, please at the very least teach your actors how to salute!
I'm different from a lot of the other reviewers in that, early on, I began to see that the movie might well end with the husband, Colby, returning. After all, it HAS happened that military personnel who were missing and thought dead have been located and returned, alive, to their families. Yes, that's an extraordinary situation, but I don't see why Hallmark should be denied the right to make a film about an extraodinary, but sometimes realistic, occurence.
Since I have had "mystical," weird and confusing experiences myself, I had no trouble believing that Danielle, played by Erin Cahill, was receiving "signs," and that those signs were from her husband's Higher Self, signalling that he was still alive.
However, I had a HUGE problem with the way the movie was wrapped up. You don't take a presumably dead Marine husband and have him suddenly show up in a hallway at his kid's school on "Daddy Daughter Dance Night." You don't have a General who knows absolutely nothing about one of the Marines under his command who has escaped from an enemy compound in the Middle East and made it all the way to the U. S. Embassy! You don't have a wife who, suddenly - with no preparation and in an unexpected place - seeing the husband she has been told was dead for the past three years, just looks surprised and kisses him and does not PASS OUT.
This movie devotes only about a minute and a half (if that!) to the husband, Colby, explaining how he got from an enemy compound in Yemen to a dance at his daughter's school in Virginia, USA - which he apparently accomplished in about three hours time. (At least, that's how it felt to the viewer.) Come on, People!
Hallmark has made wonderful movies about miracles before: an unknown grandfather who shows up in spirit to help his grown granddaughter, etc. This COULD have been one of them. Heck, you wouldn't even have to believe in miracles, since such wonderous returns from captivity have actually happened before in real life, not just in "movie life."
As it turned out, my "6" rating is pretty generous due to errors that should have been caught and fixed before silly Hallmark foisted this "could have been great" movie with its preposterous ending on a trusting, hopeful viewership.
All the actors were absolutely great. They deserved better than this.
I'm different from a lot of the other reviewers in that, early on, I began to see that the movie might well end with the husband, Colby, returning. After all, it HAS happened that military personnel who were missing and thought dead have been located and returned, alive, to their families. Yes, that's an extraordinary situation, but I don't see why Hallmark should be denied the right to make a film about an extraodinary, but sometimes realistic, occurence.
Since I have had "mystical," weird and confusing experiences myself, I had no trouble believing that Danielle, played by Erin Cahill, was receiving "signs," and that those signs were from her husband's Higher Self, signalling that he was still alive.
However, I had a HUGE problem with the way the movie was wrapped up. You don't take a presumably dead Marine husband and have him suddenly show up in a hallway at his kid's school on "Daddy Daughter Dance Night." You don't have a General who knows absolutely nothing about one of the Marines under his command who has escaped from an enemy compound in the Middle East and made it all the way to the U. S. Embassy! You don't have a wife who, suddenly - with no preparation and in an unexpected place - seeing the husband she has been told was dead for the past three years, just looks surprised and kisses him and does not PASS OUT.
This movie devotes only about a minute and a half (if that!) to the husband, Colby, explaining how he got from an enemy compound in Yemen to a dance at his daughter's school in Virginia, USA - which he apparently accomplished in about three hours time. (At least, that's how it felt to the viewer.) Come on, People!
Hallmark has made wonderful movies about miracles before: an unknown grandfather who shows up in spirit to help his grown granddaughter, etc. This COULD have been one of them. Heck, you wouldn't even have to believe in miracles, since such wonderous returns from captivity have actually happened before in real life, not just in "movie life."
As it turned out, my "6" rating is pretty generous due to errors that should have been caught and fixed before silly Hallmark foisted this "could have been great" movie with its preposterous ending on a trusting, hopeful viewership.
All the actors were absolutely great. They deserved better than this.