Cynthia Watros | Through the Shattered Lens

2000’s Mercy Streets is a strange film.

Two twin brothers, John and Jeremiah, grew up in a series of terrible group homes. One night, John fell off a bridge and Jeremiah failed to rescue him from the water below. Jeremiah was convinced that John drowned. Wracked with guilt, Jeremiah turned his life around. He became an upstanding citizen and, as an adult, he’s an Episcopal deacon who is just a few weeks away from being ordained. His girlfriend (Cynthia Watros) loves him but can tell that he’s not always open with her about his past and his emotions.

What Jeremiah doesn’t know is that John did not drown. He survived and grew up to be a career criminal. Having spent the last few years in jail, he tracks down his mentor, Rome (Eric Roberts), as soon as he’s released. (That’s right! This is an Eric Roberts film!) Rome wants John to help him out with a scheme involving counterfeit money. John decides to grab the money and run. When Rome can’t catch John, he decides to abduct Jeremiah instead.

Meanwhile, John takes over Jeremiah’s life. Pretending to be his brother, John fixes Jeremiah’s relationship with his girlfriend and he even proves to be better at delivering sermons than Jeremiah, despite the fact that John is not religious at all. While Jeremiah gets a crash course in how to be a counterfeiter, John learns how to be an upstanding member of society.

Of course, it doesn’t last. Jeremiah eventually escapes from Rome and finds himself on the streets, where he struggles to not fall into the same criminal lifestyle that previously captured his brother. Fortunately, Jeremiah runs into a priest named Tom (Stacy Keach), who offers some good advice. Meanwhile, John learns about the importance of forgiveness and redemption and discovers that Jeremiah has spent his entire life mourning the brother who he thought was dead.

Mercy Streets is an odd mix of religion and action. On the one hand, the film features David A.R. White playing two brothers who feel like they could have walked out of one of his wholesome Pureflix movies. (White, while being a decent actor, is not exactly the most believable hardened criminal that I’ve ever seen.) On the other hand, you’ve got Eric Roberts teaching Jeremiah how to be a criminal and basically taking over the entire film whenever he’s onscreen. (The scene where Rome teaches Jeremiah how to pass fake money is surprisingly well-acted and directed.) The movie runs into the same problem that plagued many a DeMille production. The heroes may all be Godly but the sinners appear to be having more fun. That said, this film at least reminds us of what a good actor Eric Roberts can be when he’s got a decent role.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

After I watched 16 and Missing, it was time to continue cleaning out my DVR by watching Stolen From The Suburbs. Stolen From The Suburbs is a Lifetime film that originally aired on August 30th and I’m not sure why I missed watching it the first time that it aired.

If I had to describe Stolen From The Suburbs in one word, it would be intense. From the opening scene, in which two homeless teenagers are forcibly abducted by a man who pretended to be from a charitable organization to the film’s final violent stand-off, this is one intense film. While it has all the usual Lifetime tropes — rebellious daughter, overwhelmed single daughter, untrustworthy men, and hints of real-world significance — Stolen From The Suburbs is a hundred times more intense than your average Lifetime film. Indeed, this is one of the rare Lifetime films that ends without the hint that everything is going to be okay. While there are hugs at the end, there is no reassuring coda. The emotional and physical damage inflicted in Stolen From The Suburbs feels real and has real consequences.

Widowed Katherine (Cynthia Watros) and her teenager daughter, Emma (Sydney Sweeney), has just moved to the suburbs. Katherine is a loving mother and Emma is a good daughter, the type who even turns down a beer on the beach because she told her mother that she wouldn’t drink. However, when Emma meets the cute (and asthmatic) Adam (Nick Roux), she starts to resent her mother’s overprotectiveness. When Katherine finally says that she doesn’t want Emma hanging out with Adam, Emma responds by sneaking out of the house and never returning.

Desperately searching for her daughter, Katherine goes down to the mall and finds Emma’s cell phone tossed away in a dumpster. When she calls the police, Katherine tells them that Emma has been kidnapped. The unsympathetic detectives ask her if Emma has a history of running away and basically prove themselves to be useless. (The cops are always useless in a Lifetime film.) Katherine teams up with Anna Fray (Brooke Nevins), a missing persons activist, to find Emma.

What Anna tells Katherine is terrifying. Anna explains that teenage girls have been vanishing all over town. The police assume that they are runaways and make no effort to find them. In reality, though, the girls are being sold as sex slaves.

And that’s exactly what happened to Emma. Emma and several other teenage girls have been abducted and are now locked in a cage. In just a few days, they will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Overseeing the entire operation is Milena (Oliva d’Abo).

As played by d’Abo, Milena is one of the great Lifetime villains. As she explains it, she was kidnapped herself and sold as a sex slave. However, she has now managed to take over the operation and takes obvious pleasure in putting others through the same torture that she suffered. Playing the role with an ever present smirk and a haughty cruelty, Olivia d’Abo is absolutely chilling as Milena.

Also giving a great performance is Cynthia Watros. (You may remember her as Libby on Lost.) Watros makes Katherine’s pain and desperation feel incredibly real and when she finally confronts Milena, it’s absolutely riveting.

Stolen From The Suburbs is an excellent Lifetime film. Keep an eye out for it!