User Reviews

Emmanuelle Vaugier (she played the gorgeous Jasmine in "Secondhand Lions," the superior movie with Duvall, Caine and Osment) - is one of the most attractive and pleasant persons on-screen in some time. This story, while not an artistic piece of writing, revealing a woman's secret past, and told countless times before (in scores of variations) - still tightly holds your interest. The performances are all good - better than in many more highly-touted, 9-figure productions. And it would be a pleasure to watch this leading young Canadian actress if she were just filmed, on-screen, simply watching a painted wall dry. Bruce Ramsay, as her smarmy "ex" from her jaded past, and the fine character actor, Nick Mancuso (as the Russian mobster, with a heart at least partially made of gold) give very good performances - and their characters ring true. That is one of this small film's appeal. Despite not being the most original of story lines, and the type of production where you're not surprised by mediocre acting and characters which are overdrawn and overplayed - this film provides superior performances, and wholly-balanced characters. There is also a kind of old-fashioned happy ending, after all the turmoil (except for Mr. Ramsay).

"What Comes Around" (a.k.a., "Veiled Truth") is a potpourri film with a little bit of everything surrounding the oldest profession in the world. Carolyn was down on her luck, panhandling spare change when she was taken off the rough streets of New York by the sleazy Jake, who became her pimp.

The woman was known to Jake as "Angie" and, assisted by her friend Kim, she eventually set Jake up for an arrest and prison time. Jake's equally unsavory brother Duane was killed when the police burst into the apartment. After a stint in prison, Jake murders Kim, then makes a beeline to his "Angie," who has now assumed the name of Carolyn with two beautiful children and married to a rising politician named Andy Lomax.

The early part of the film makes effective use of flashbacks, and the second half unfolds Jake's scheme to blackmail Carolyn for $25,000 and to send her out for one final trick with the nefarious Victor Graznov, to whom Jake owes a significant debt.

The feisty Carolyn must improvise in order to save her children whom Jake has threatened to kill, if she doesn't follow his instructions. Carolyn does not confide in her husband, and she withholds from the police vital information about her deceased friend Kim. After she was contacted by a New York detective, Carolyn is guilty of aiding and abetting a felon by not informing the detective about Jake.

The major obstacle to Carolyn's salvation is the Russian overlord Graznov, whom Carolyn drugs and delivers a haymaker at the Four Strands Hotel in Seattle. The best line in the film is when Carolyn tells Graznov, "I punched you while you were still on your feet!" That moment leads to sustained laughter from Graznov's thugs and Graznov himself. Along the way, a major revelation occurs about the paternity of Carolyn's little boy. It turns out that he is Duane's kid, not Andy's!

Graznov now holds all of the cards in determining the fate of Carolyn and her family. In the final stretch of the film, Carolyn does a great deal of racing back and forth from Spokane to Seattle. There is a riveting ending that will determine whether or not Carolyn will be sleeping with the fishes, sleepless in Seattle, or smiling in Spokane.