(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June.  She’s trying to get it all done by July 11th!  Will she make it!?  Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 22nd film on the DVR was Broken Promise, which I recorded off of Lifetime on May 22nd.

Before I get into the film itself, let me just say this about the title: Broken Promise is the perfect generic Lifetime title.  I mean, it tells you absolutely nothing and yet it somehow tells you everything as well. If I hadn’t told you that I recorded this movie off of Lifetime, you would have guessed it just from the title, wouldn’t you?  There’s an art to coming up with perfectly generic titles and Lifetime has mastered it.

Anyway, Broken Promise opens in 1992!  Two high school seniors — Mina (Angeline Appel) and her boyfriend, Reese (Mickey River) — are driving around in Reese’s canary yellow car.  If you watch that movie, pay attention to the car because you’ll be seeing it again.  It’s like the canary yellow harbinger of death and doom.  Anyway, Mina and Reese are young and in love so, naturally, they decide to break into a house for a romantic evening.  However, the romance is interrupted when the owner of the house shows up with a shotgun.   There’s a struggle.  The homeowner is killed.  Reese tells Mina that she needs to leave and that he’ll take the blame when the cops show up.  Mina promises to wait for him to get out of prison.

However, promises were made to be broken…

Jump forward 25 years!  Reese Sinclair (now played by Louis Mandylor) is finally being released from prison.  However, no one is waiting to greet him on the outside.  While he manages to get back his yellow car, his girlfriend is nowhere to be seen.

That’s right — Mina broke her promise!  No only did she not wait for him but she also got married and now has a sullen teenage daughter, Hali (Lauren York).  Making matters even worse, Mina not only got married but she married a cop!  Ben Gardner (Nick Baillie) may be a nice guy and a good cop but that doesn’t stop Reese from fantasizing about murdering him.

Well, you can probably guess what happens.  Reese tracks down Mina and her family.  Reese tries to ingratiate himself with the family.  Rebellious Hali starts to get too close to her mom’s ex-boyfriend.  It’s really pretty much a typical Lifetime film, with all that implies.  It’s well-made and well-acted and it won’t surprise you one bit.

In fact, to me, the most interesting thing about the film was looking at the cast and remembering all the other Lifetime films that they’ve appeared in.  Ashley Scott was in 16 and Missing.   Nick Baillie was in Full Out, which I will be reviewing soon.  Lauren York was not only in The Perfect Daughter but also co-starred in Babysitter’s Black Book with Angelina Appel, who plays the younger version of her mom in this movie!  According the imdb, York will also be appearing in the sequel to Lavalantula.  They all do a pretty good job in this movie and so does Louis Madylor.

Let’s put it like this: if you like Lifetime movies, you’ll like this.  If you don’t, you won’t.