blanche-2 IMDb member Caa821 felt the comments were more entertaining than the movie. I think Caa821's comments were more entertaining than the movie."Criminal Intent" follows the Lifetime TV template to a 'T': familiar stars (Vanessa Angel and Linda Purl), with the rest of the cast being not only unfamiliar but fairly poor actors; filmed in Canada; derivative; moves slowly; predictable.Angel plays a defense attorney turned divorce attorney whose good friend is murdered, with the woman's ex-husband being accused. He wants her to go back to her defense roots and represent him, even though she handled their divorce. She agrees and comes up against a tough DA (Purl).There is a twist in the story, but I don't know who's comparing this to Alfred Hitchcock. The acting is lethargic, and Angel's collagen lips are distracting.As I mentioned in a previous post, these mindless Lifetime movies are great for a Sunday afternoon or when you're trying to sleep, and they give work to formerly prolific actors like Purl. I have to commend Lifetime for hiring 40+ actresses who find themselves "aged out" of Hollywood.

tk11-2 Watched the first scene, and none of it made any sense. #1. Why would the police be the only ones called to the scene, I mean its a stabbing. You would think just maybe, paramedics might be a more important in this situation. #2. The 911 operator gives completely false instructions on how to perform CPR. You don't breath into the mouth first, you do that after at least 30 hard pumps into the chest. #3. Why in the world would you pull out the knife as you hear police sirens, instead of pulling it out while she was dying? This was all just unbelievably stupid and so I fortunately decided not to waste 2 hours of my life watching this crap. 3 minutes is all it took to fail, yikes.

caa821 Checked the previous seven comments here as this flick was beginning. Frankly, reading them was as interesting as watching the film. Where there are a great number of comments, you expect them to be diverse, and even with a few, usually somebody loves the move, someone else hates it, etc.However, among the few here, comments ranged from those who seemed to feel the story, plot and performances were reminiscent of Hitchcock's best, to those who seemed to place it at the bottom end of the frequently mediocre "Lifetime" fare. Descriptions of the plot seemed to vary from feeling it was completely clever and suspenseful to totally banal.One individual cited that this presentation was filmed in 12 days. I didn't see anything to confirm this, but he seemed certain, and the level of the performances (including that of the usually excellent Linda Purl), seemed to confirm this. With D. A. Purl turning 50 at time of filming, and defense lawyer Vanessa Angel near 40, both were years senior to the male leads, David Palffy at 35, and Sebastian Spence about a year older. At her age, Angel looks as though she may surpass Joan Rivers in terms of Botox applications long before she reaches the latter's advanced age.I've come to believe that a major reason for producing these "Lifetime" presentations is to assist in supporting Canada's economy, since most of them seem to be shot there, usually in either Vancouver (as this flick was) or Toronto. I suppose which site is utilized depends on background needed for the particular story, but primarily whether cast and crew are more West Coast or East.Actually, after viewing the film myself, I feel that just about all the previous ones commenting had it partially correct. I would give it what amounts to an average of these, as well as the overall "ratings" figure shown on this site..The acting was uninspired, with neither the characters nor the performances particularly engaging. There was something of a "twist," and while somewhat interesting, it seemed to be one which could well be seen coming, and the only possible basis for a "twist," given the dull storyline and equally dull interaction among the lead characters. The ending did involve some knife-wielding, inevitable in most "Lifetime" offerings, but tamer than usual.And when the mid-30-ish treasury guy (Palffy) and the 50-ish D.A. (Purl) made a date to have dinner together, I couldn't help but wonder whether they might discuss a possible romantic future, or perhaps, more likely, her adopting him.

Novemberschild06 I am biased because I happen to love anything Linda Purl is in, but this movie really is not too bad! Linda Purl has the lead role, she's a strong woman typical to what "Lifetime" tries to portray women as. She was great in her role. This movie had a very unexpected twist which was good. With many movies you can see a twist coming, with this movie it was very surprising. But, after a twist such as this, one expects the movie to end not too long after, and this movie seemed to drag out a little too long after the reveal. I don't think the actors should be blamed for this though. The casting was pretty good, the actors were believable in their roles. The camera shots and fades from one scene to another keep your attention. Overall I think you will enjoy this movie.