On Saturday night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Watch Your Back!

AnnaLynne McCord is stalked in Watch Your Back.  I love the old guy trying not to laugh.

Why Was I Watching It?

I was not in a very good mood on Saturday night, largely because of the fact that I knew I would be losing an hour later that night.  Seriously, Daylight Savings Time sucks!  What better way to cheer myself up than be watching the latest Lifetime movie?

What Was It About?

Sarah (AnnaLynne McCord) seems as if she has it all.  She has a successful career in advertising and an assistant (Darla Taylor) who views her as being a role model.  She has a new husband named Kurt (Mark Ghanime) who is an aspiring novelist.  Her stepdaughter even calls her “mommy.”

However, one day, Sarah starts to receive photos that someone has been taking of her.  However, since the photos are sent using flashchat (not relation to snapchat), the evidence that she’s being stalked is deleted minutes after she sees it.  Soon, she realizes that someone has been breaking into her house.  Her husband, meanwhile, is tricked into thinking that there’s a bomb in the mailbox.

As Sarah grows more and more paranoid, it starts to become apparent that this is not your average stalking case.  Instead, it all links back to a shadowy organization of professional assassins.  And, from there, the film just gets stranger and stranger…

What Worked?

So, here’s the thing with this movie: For this first 78 minutes or so, nothing about this film seemed to be working.  Sarah came across as being unlikable and stubborn.  Her refusal to call the police made it difficult to have any sympathy for her.  Add to that, she never seemed to be particularly concerned about anyone who got hurt over the course of the film.  At one point, she chased a totally innocent photographer into oncoming traffic.  Needless to say, the photographer ended up getting struck by a car and appeared to be on the verge of death.  Sarah didn’t seem to feel much guilt about this and I found myself thinking, “Are we actually supposed to like her?”  Meanwhile, Kurt came across as being such a wimp that I pretty much found myself not caring about either of them.

But then, during the final 10 minutes of the movie, Watch Your Back goes completely and totally batshit crazy.  The film’s “big” twist is so over-the-top and ludicrous that, in its own strange way, it actually manages to redeem almost the entire film.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that the twist makes any sense but it certainly is memorable.

And, once the twist is revealed, AnnaLynne McCord’s performance actually starts to make sense.  Suddenly, you realize that McCord’s strange performance was actually what was needed to set up the film’s strange ending.

What Did Not Work?

There have been a lot of wimpy husbands in a lot of different Lifetime films but it’s hard to think of any that were as totally wimpy as the character of Kurt.  Kurt was nice and sensitive but he was pretty much useless in a crisis.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love sensitive guys but sometimes, you just need a man to actually be a man.

Also, I could have used an update on what happened to that photographer after Sarah nearly got him killed.  The film just kind of abandoned him.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

Needless to say, I related to Julie (Darla Taylor), the much put upon administrative assistant.  As I watched Julie deal with an increasingly neurotic supervisor, I found myself thinking, “I know that feeling.”  When Julie has to deal with Sarah’s paranoid glances and condescending tone, I nodded and said, “Been there.”  And when, at the end of the film, when Julie got to deliver a kick ass one liner, I thought to myself, “I better remember that, just in case I ever find myself in the exact same situation.”

Lessons Learned

Since Watch Your Back took place in a weird, batshit crazy universe that had absolutely no relation to our real universe, I can honestly say that I didn’t learn a thing from this movie.