Lifetime Film Review: Mama’s Little Murderer (dir by Andrew Parkes)

Posted on June 5, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, this one is just strange.

Mama’s Little Murderer opens with twenty-something Anthony (Isaac Kragten) being abducted and taken, with a bag over his head, to a random wooded location. Uh-oh, looks like Anthony is in trouble! Suddenly, we flash back to Anthony getting suspended from college because of his fearsome tempter. Then, a few weeks later, Anthony shows up at home where he is upset to discover that his mother, Constance (Sara Canning), is living with her boyfriend, Leo (Ian Kilburn). Anthony is jealous and goes to extremes to try to break up Constance and Leo.

Because of the title, I assumed that this film would be about a mom discovering that her son is a murderer. I also thought that the son would be much younger than he turned out to be. You don’t really refer to a twenty-year old as being “mama’s little anything.” Due to the title, I was expecting this to be a version of The Bad Seed. Instead, it just became a film about a selfish and rather annoying college student who couldn’t accept the fact that his mom was moving on with her life. Anthony went to extremes to try to break up Leo and his mom but, and please forgive the spoiler, he never murdered anyone.

While we’re watching Anthony act like a loser in the past, we’re also watching Constance and Leo trying to deal with him being kidnapped in the present. Now, I will say that there was some suspense as to whether or not Anthony was in on the kidnapping. Or at least, there was initially. But it soon became clear that, while Anthony was guilty of being a very bad son, he was not guilty of setting up his own kidnapping. Indeed, the kidnapping had very little do with his efforts to break up his mother and Leo.

As I watched this movie, I found myself thinking about how much I hated The King of Staten Island. That was the film that featured Pete Davidson as an annoying little jerk who got mad because his mother (Marisa Tomei) was dating a fireman (Bill Burr). My main issue with that film was that everyone seemed to be way too forgiving of Davidson’s character. The same thing happens here. Anthony does some terrible things. He doesn’t even tell his mom the truth about what happened at the college. But, when all of his lies and his schemes are revealed, he just apologizes and everyone’s like, “Oh, okay, that’s cool.” Whereas, in reality, they should have kicked him out of the house and had him committed somewhere.

(Needless to say, it’s never a good sign when a film makes you think about another film that you disliked.)

This was essentially two films in one. One film was about a mentally unstable son. The other film was a standard kidnapping film. Unfortunately, the two films didn’t really go together and neither one felt fully developed. It’s a shame because Sara Canning was likable as Constance and you really did hope that she would find happiness with Leo. It was hard not to feel that both Constance and Leo deserved better than having to deal with Anthony. They should have let the kidnappers keep him.

Lifetime Film Review: Death At The Dinner Party (dir by Alain Desrochers)

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s been a Death At The Dinner Party!

This Lifetime film has a title that makes it sound like it should be one of those British murder mysteries, set in the 1920s and featuring a Scotland Yard inspector limping around a mansion while trying to figure out who killed the notorious ne’er-do-well, Freddy Gibbs. (The Inspector would limp because of the wound he received while fighting in the Great War.) Was it the maid? Was it the groundskeeper? Was it the flighty flapper or the grand dame with the mysterious past? Or was the murderer the shadowy visitor from America, the one who is rumored to be connected to bootleggers in Toronto. Fear not! Stanley of the Yard is on the case!

Where was I? Oh yeah, I was creating a different movie in my head. Anyway, let’s talk about the movie that I actually watched….

Andrea Gibbs (Candice Lidstone) is visiting her son, Ethan (Cameron Brodeur). Ethan is a somewhat nerdy college student who is rooming with a platonic female friend who he is obviously in love with. Andrea can tell that Ethan has been friend zoned and sweetly asks his roommate to let him down gently. Ethan’s roommate later ends up dead at a dinner party that is attended by Ethan and Andrea. The dinner party’s host is a psychology professor, Alan Jackson (Mark Day). Jackson posts his fascistic lectures online and he has a loyal following of all-male students. Gee, can you guess who was actually behind the murder?

(Last summer, Erin and I watched several episodes of an old show that featured Jim Hutton as Ellery Queen. We loved it whenever Hutton would suddenly look at the camera and say, “Well, I’ve figured this one out! Have you!?” I have to admit that usually, I had not. Erin was much better at figuring out who the murderer was than I was. But, in the case of this film, I think Ellery probably would have looked straight at the camera before the murder even happened.)

There’s nothing particularly subtle about Death At The Dinner Party. The film’s portrayal of dangerous, right-wing college professors gives the whole thing a dated feel, as if it should have aired ten years earlier than it did. The film could have just as easily have been called Murder On The Intellectual Dark Web or Death At Evergreen College. Today, I imagine that members of the angry dishrag brigade are a more realistic danger than a fight club of psych majors. But the lack of subtlety and even the dated premise give this film a certain charm. It’s over-the-top and it embraces the melodrama, just as every Lifetime film should.

Though she only appears to be a few years older than the actor playing her son, Candice Lidstone does a good job playing the mother who is rightly concerned about what her child is learning in college. Indeed, the mother-child relationship was this film’s secret weapon. When I was in college, I never would have had the courage to invite my mom to a dinner party with any of my professors. Then again, at my college, dinner with a professor usually meant a lot more alcohol and definitely a lot more weed. However, there was also significantly less murder so everything evened out in the end.

Lifetime Film Review: Accused: The Karen Read Story (dir by Linda-Lisa Hayter)

Posted on June 3, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2022, a Boston police officer named John O’Keefe was discovered unconscious on the snow-covered front lawn of a fellow police officer. O’Keefe was taken to the hospital, where he subsequently passed away. It was determined that he died not from spending the night lying in the snow but instead from blunt force trauma. O’Keefe’s girlfriend, Karen Read, was arrested and charged with the crime. Depending on who you asked, Karen Read was either a cold-hearted murderer or the victim of a frame-up. Because O’Keefe was himself a member of the force, it was easy make the argument that the Boston PD was so eager to arrest someone for his murder and “protect one of their own,” that they neglected to follow the evidence while making their case against Karen Read. Of course, one could also wonder if Karen Read would have received as much support from the public if she had been someone other than an attractive professional white woman.

It took two trials but eventually, Karen Read was acquitted. At the time, her trials dominated social media. It was not uncommon to see the second trial referred to as being “the trial of the century.” I think most of us understood that was hyperbole. The Karen Read trial was not “the trial of the century” as much as it was just “the trial of the moment.” After she was acquitted, people spent another week talking about her, the trial, and the Boston PD and then everyone moved on. There’s always a new murder to “solve” or a new trial to debate. In another year or so, no one will remember which side of the Karen Read debate they were on. That will probably include me as well.

(Online sleuthing is always entertaining but ultimately rather shallow. Those of us who have grown up consuming true crime books and movies often expect things to be more dramatic than they actually are and we tend to gloss over the fact that, while an online sleuth can bring attention to a case, it’s rare that they ever actually solve anything. As an example, for all the attention that was given to Michelle McNamara’s quest to identify the Golden State Killer, we tend to ignore the fact that most of her theories about his identity turned out to be incorrect.)

Still, the Karen Read case was prominent enough that everyone know that Lifetime would eventually make a movie about it. Accused: The Karen Read Story asks the question, “Did Karen Read kill John O’Keefe?” and then it answers it by saying, “Of course she didn’t! What are you, an idiot?” That’s not necessarily a complaint. As annoying as I sometimes found Karen Read’s most vehement online defenders to be, I actually agreed with them about her innocence. It’s just that, if you’re looking for a film that offers up any hint of ambiguity about the case, this is not the film for you. The film is firmly on the side of Karen Read, to the extent that the O’Keefe family is often presented as being villains.

It’s a well-made film, though. In the roles of Karen Read and John O’Keefe, both Katie Cassidy and Luke Humphrey give good performances. Humphrey is especially good in the role of O’Keefe and the film doesn’t shy away from portraying the tumultuous details of his relationship with Karen Read. (The film also deserves some credit for not turning O’Keefe into a cardboard bad boyfriend during his arguments with Read.) Linda-Lisa Hayter’s direction captures both the cold chill of the snowy night and the insular atmosphere of big city law enforcement. It’s a skillful film that will be best appreciated by people who are already convinced of Karen Read’s innocence.

Lifetime Film Review: The Wrong Baby Daddy (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on June 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Lila (Ciarra Carter) has just broken up with her boyfriend and desperately needs a new job to take her mind off of things. Luckily, her friend Robin (Vivica A. Fox) comes to the rescue. Robin not only tells off Lila’s ex but she also gives Lila a job. At work, Lila meets Mark (Matthew Pohlkamp). One one night stand later, Lila is pregnant and moving into Mark’s surprisingly large house. (It’s a David DeCoteau film. All of the houses are surprisingly large.) Mark’s ex-wife, Julia (Jamie Bernadette), shows up and is surprisingly helpful. Meanwhile, it seems like everyone who questions Mark’s motives either disappears or is discovered dead. Is it all a coincidence or should Lila be worried?

Oh, you just have to love the Wrong films. A lot has changed over the past few years and Lifetime’s programming and movies have changed as well. Whether they’ve changed for the better or for the worse depends on how you look at things and what you prioritize. For someone like me, who detests change and wishes that time could be frozen for just a few years or so, it can be difficult to accept that it’s not the 2010s anymore. But the Wrong films have remained consistent for ten years. David DeCoteau directs. Handsome men of a certain age are not to be trusted. Everyone lives in a big house that there’s no way they would be able to afford in real life. The melodrama is embraced. The violence is often bloodless. The main character is usually a woman who really should know better. Vivica A. Fox plays the no-nonsense authority figure who, in most cases, says the film’s title.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Vivica A. Fox to these films. Along with serving as an executive producer, she also serves as the voice of reason. That she is usually as frustrated with the characters as the viewers is a very important thing. Watching these films, it’s easy to wish that you could step into Vivica’s stylish and expensive shoes and say, “Girl, looks like you hired The Wrong Landscaper.” Or, “Girl, looks you paid The Wrong Bill. The lights are going to be off for a while.” The secret is the way that Vivica delivers the line. When Vivica says that someone was “the wrong whatever,” she leaves with you with little doubt that there’s no point in arguing. Vivica knows wrong when she sees it and you don’t.

As for 2026’s The Wrong Baby Daddy, it has one of the best titles but it’s also actually a bit mild when compared to some of the other Wrong films. It goes through the motions without ever going as gloriously over-the-top as some of the other installments in the series. That said, it’s still a fun movie. At this point, the familiarity of the plot is kind of the point. The Wrong films are comfort food for the soul. It doesn’t matter how bad of a day you’ve had or how negatives the news may be. If hearing Vivica A. Fox call someone “the wrong baby daddy” doesn’t bring some light to your life, you have no soul.

Lifetime Film Review: I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco (dir by Heather Hawthorne-Doyle)

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco is an example of one of the latest trends in Lifetime filmmaking. The real Mary Jo Buttafuoco tells us her story in between scenes of it being reenacted by actors.

That’s not necessarily a bad idea. Lifetime did something similar with Elizabeth Smart and it led to one of the most powerful films to ever appear on the network. However, the Elizabeth Smart film benefitted from the fact that Smart is an articulate, intelligent, and insightful speaker in her own right. She is someone who went through the worst and managed to come out of it not only stronger but also with the passion and articulateness of an genuine activist.

Mary Jo is not quite as compelling. It brings me no joy to say that because Mary Jo really was put through Hell and, far too often, she has been treated as an afterthought in her own story. For those who may have forgotten or who haven’t had seen any of the previous films made about what happened to her, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was the wife of Long Island mechanic Joey Buttafuoco. She stood by Joey while he struggled with drug addiction and she supported him when he opened his own garage. Joey rewarded her loyalty by having an affair with a teenager named Amy Fisher. Fisher, who apparently believed that Mary Jo was the only thing standing in the way of her being with Joey forever, went to the Buttafuoco home and shot Mary Jo in the face.

The story was a media circus, with Amy Fisher being dubbed “the Long Island Lolita” and three made-for-TV movies being made, all in the same year, about the shooting. Joey initially denied that he had ever touched Amy and Mary Jo, who miraculously survived, originally stood by Joey. Unfortunately, in all the attention that was given to Amy and Joey (and really, the word “goombah” might as well appear with a picture of Joey in the dictionary), the fact that Mary Jo nearly died was often overlooked. Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco became odd celebrities as a result of the crime. Mary Jo was ridiculed for both not realizing that Joey was cheating on her and continuing to stand by her man for years after she was shot by his mistress.

There’s a great movie to be made about Mary Jo Buttafuoco. (Considering that one of three previous films was told from Joey’s point of view, it only seems appropriate that there should have been a movie from Mary Jo’s.) Unfortunately, having Mary Jo tell her own story doesn’t work as well as one might hope. When you really want Mary Jo to go off on Joey, she instead goes off on being raised Catholic. If only she hadn’t been raised in a Catholic family, she seems to be saying, she never would have married and stuck with Joey Buttafuoco. Instead of really examining her marriage to Joey Buttafuoco, she instead blames her mother and her religion. It feels like too convenient an excuse.

The film is a bit more compelling in the flashbacks, with Chloe Lanier giving a strong performance as Mary Jo and Madelyn Grace playing Amy Fisher as not being a Lolita but instead as being a neurotic and rather stupid brat. In the end, what matters is that Mary Jo did eventually free herself from Joey and we should all be happy for that.

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Wrong Mr. Right (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on April 3, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Girl, you picked the wrong Mr, Right,” Sandra (Vivica A. Fox) says towards the end of 2021’s The Wrong Mr. Right and she’s absolutely correct.

Sandra’s best friend is Tracy (Krista Allen), whose new boyfriend Paul (Rob Hillis) has recently moved into her huge home. (The house should be familiar to anyone who has seen a David DeCoteau film.) Tracy’s daughter, Jessica (Anna Marie Dobbins), is suspicious of Paul and she has every right to be. Paul is not only a con artist and a murderer but he’s also so dumb that he leaves a box full of all the evidence of his wrong doings sitting in his office, where anyone could easily find it and go through it.

In general, I enjoy the “Wrong” films but I have to admit that even I couldn’t suspend my disbelief long enough to buy that Tracy would not only trust Paul but also continue to trust him even after it was revealed that his name was actually Michael O’Neill. I shared Jessica’s frustrations and, to her credit, Anna Marie Dobbins went through the film with a “What the heck!?” expression on her face that made Jessica very relatable.

The usual DeCoteau suspects all make appearances in this film. Dominique Swain, Meredith Thomas, Kirstine DeBell, and Michael Gaglio all have small roles. Best of all is Eric Roberts, who plays a jaunty private detective. He doesn’t get much screentime but this is still one of Roberts’s better cameo appearances. I’m going to guess that he must have been in a good mood on the day he shot his scenes. His character is definitely one of the highlights of the film.

In closing, I should mention that this film takes place in Texas. While I’m pretty sure that the house was located in Canada, there were at least a few scenes that were apparently shot in Austin. That was nice to see. The Wrong films are branching out!

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Wrong High School Sweetheart (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on April 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2022’s The Wrong High School Sweetheart, Mea Wilkerson plays Danielle, a real estate agent who dated Danny (Alex Trumble) in high school. (Dani and Danny! How cute!) Danielle and Danny broke up when Danny went off to college on a baseball scholarship. Now, Danny has returned home and he’s eager to start things up again with Danielle. Danielle’s wimpy fiancé, Tod (Doug Rogers), isn’t happy about that.

“You just had the wrong high school sweetheart,” Vivica A. Fox says once it’s become obvious that Danny is psychotic. Vivica plays the high school principal. For some reason, she is best friends with her former student, Danielle. Vivica A. Fox appears in all of the “Wrong” films and she’s usually cast as an authority figure. It almost always falls on her to say the film’s title. Sometimes, she’s a bit judgmental. If she says you “picked,” the wrong person, you know everything is your fault. In this once, she makes it clear that Danielle is not to blame because she “just had” the wrong person in her life. It’s always a fun to see Vivica in these films.

The “Wrong” films are almost always entertaining. The Wrong High School Sweetheart certainly is. David DeCoteau’s campy sensibility is uniquely suited to these films. The Wrong High School Sweetheart features Danny chanting, “Stronger than steel/Hotter than the sun/Danny Brooks won’t stop/Til he gets the job done!” while exercising in his underwear. Alex Trumble throws himself into the role of Danny and good for him.

As always with the “Wrong” films, some familiar faces show up in small roles. Tracy Nelson plays a therapist. And, of course, Eric Roberts shows up as a detective. Hopefully, we’ll get a sequel called The Wrong Detective.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Wrong Teacher (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on March 31, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When Charlotte (Jessica Morris) meets a younger man named Chris (Philip McElroy), she is both flattered and amused when he asks her out. “You’re a little young for me,” Charlotte says. However, Charlotte’s friend, Maddie (Akari Endo), insists that Charlotte really does need to get out more so Charlotte meets up with Chris for drinks. One things leads to another and soon, Charlotte is having sex with Chris in her classroom!

(Charlotte is an English teacher, along with being a struggling romance novelist.)

The next day, as Charlotte teachers her class, she is shocked when Chris shows up. “What are you doing here?” Charlotte asks. Chris reveals that he’s a new student and Charlotte is now his English teacher!

2018’s The Wrong Teacher is one of the many “Wrong” films that David DeCoteau directed for Lifetime. This one follows the usual pattern. Chris isn’t ready to let go of his one night of passion with the teacher. When he discovers that Charlotte is getting back together with her ex-boyfriend (Jason-Shane Scott), he snaps. Soon, people are getting shot and hit with baseball bats and videos of Chris and Charlotte going at it in the classroom are showing up on the school’s twitter page. Vivica A. Fox is alarmed that Charlotte could be so foolish. Charlotte declares, “You messed with the wrong teacher!” Thanks to some last minute strangeness that sees Charlotte adopting a Southern accent, The Wrong Teacher is enjoyably over the top.

As for Eric Roberts, he plays the assistant principal. He’s a bit burned-out. He’s easily annoyed. He doesn’t want any scandalous behavior in his school. He’s Eric Roberts and he makes the most of his three scenes. Eric even stands up and walks in this movie. He only does that when he’s particularly invested in a role. The Wrong Teacher? More like The Right Vice Principal.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Lifetime Film Review: Teenage Bank Heist (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on March 3, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s just another day at the bank….

Cassie Aveson (Abbie Cobb) is a directionless teenager whose life has been going nowhere since high school. Her mother, Joyce (Maeve Quinlan), encourages Cassie to at least consider going to junior college but Cassie says that she’s not even sure that she ever wants to go to college at all. (I tried that same argument on my mom after I graduated high school. I didn’t get very far.) Wanting to spend more time with her daughter, single mother Joyce arranges for Cassie to get a job at the same bank where Joyce works.

So far so good, right? Unfortunately, when three masked robbers using voice distortion devices rob the bank, one of them grabs Cassie and takes her as a hostage. Another one of the robbers shoots a security guard. After the robbers take off with Cassie and $600,000 in stolen money, Joyce is shocked to discover that FBI Agent Mendoza (Rosa Blaasi) suspects that Cassie was in on the robbery.

“Do you have children?” Joyce asks Mendoza..

After hesitating, Mendoza admits that she does not. Well, that’s all we need to know about her! Unless you have children, you have no right to suspect that anyone’s child might be involved in a crime. So, I guess, maybe don’t join the FBI if that’s the case because your job is going to be super-difficult.

As for Cassie, she is innocent as far as the bank robbery is concerned. However, she does know the three people under the masks. She went to high school with them. Grace Miller (Davida Williams) is the concerned and responsible friend who is planning on going to law school, even if she’s currently serving as a get away driver. Marie (Augie Duke) is the bad girl who has a heavily tattooed boyfriend named Nick (James Ferris) and who was probably voted Most Likely To Shoot A Security Guard. And finally, Abbie (Cassi Thomson) is the apologetic outcast who Cassie was once suspended for defending.

It’s a teenage bank heist!

Released in 2012, Teenage Bank Heist is one of the best of the old school Lifetime films. It not only embraces the melodrama but it holds on tight and demands even more. Grace and Abbi have a reason for robbing the bank that goes beyond simple thrills but to reveal all of the details would not be fair to those who have yet to see the film. One of the joys of Teenage Bank Heist is that it’s a film that continually leaves you shocked as to how far it takes things. Teenage Bank Heist is totally over-the-top, ludicrous, and just a ton of fun. Watching this film, you will believe that a bunch of teenage girls can rob a bank and get involved in an international incident. You will also believe that a suburban movie can pick up a gun and become an ice cold vigilante when she needs to. It’s Lifetime at its best.

Early on in the film, there’s a beautiful shot of a bunch of loose bills floating in the air. It’s the type of shot that reminds us that we’re watching a film by Doug Campbell, who was responsible for the best Lifetime films. Teenage Bank Heist is currently streaming on Prime and Tubi and you should watch it immediately. Do it for every teenager who has ever literally had no choice but to rob a bank. It happens more often than you may think.

Lifetime Film Review: Taken At A Basketball Game (dir by Ruba Nadda)

Posted on December 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

TAKEN …. at a basketball game!

I’ve always appreciated any made-for-TV movie that’s absolutely shameless about ripping off a big budget feature film and, as such, I did appreciate the chutzpah of Taken At A Basketball Game. I mean the word “TAKEN” is right there in the title! D.B. Woodside plays Wayne Edwards, an ex-cop who is now the head of security for a casino. Wayne is haunted by a shooting that left an innocent girl dead. Wayne is also middle-aged and struggling to relate to his teenage daughter, Robyn (Claire Qute). When Robyn is abducted by sex traffickers at a basketball game, Wayne sets out to track her down and rescue her. It probably will not surprise you to hear that there’s a scene where Wayne explains that, even before he was a cop, he was a member of Special Forces and, as such, he knows how to get information out of people.

That said, it’s been quite a while since Taken was first released. The first film came out in 2008 and it can be somewhat surprising to remember how excited everyone was about it. At that time, Liam Neeson was best-known for appearing in prestige pictures so there was something enjoyably subversive about him playing a relentless torturer on a mission. A lot of people were also under the impression that Taken was based on a true story. A sequel followed in 2012 and, by that point, people were much more used to the idea of Liam Neeson killing people. The third (and, to date, final) Taken film came out in 2015 and no one really cared. There was a television series that sputtered along for two seasons. There were countless Taken rip-offs, many of which starred Nissan himself. The initial cultural footprint of Taken was huge but, by the start of the 2020s, it had pretty much evaporated. Taken At A Basketball Game comes out at a time when even Liam Neeson has started parodying his image.

This is my long-winded way of saying that Taken At A Basketball Game would probably have worked better as a parody than a straight action film. At this point, whenever an actor starts to give a monologue about how he’s been given very special training, it’s hard not to laugh because it’s a scene that has shown up in so many movies that it’s basically been done to death. Everyone thinks that they can do a perfect impersonation of Liam Neeson reciting the Taken speech. Of course, what originally sold the speech in 2008 was that Neeson delivered it with an intensity and a commitment that kept it from sounding like a bunch of empty boasts. Listening to Neeson in that first film, you sincerely believed that he could and would kill someone if he felt like it. D.B. Woodside, who is probably best-known for playing the less interesting of 24‘s two President Palmers, comes across as being a bit too mild-mannered to give a convincing “I’ve been trained to inflict pain” speech. For most of the film, he seems like he’d rather just go back to his office and maybe sell someone some insurance.

The other problem with Taken At A Basketball Game is that very little of it actually takes place at the basketball game. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fan of basketball. Those squeaky shoes give me a migraine. But the stadium was a good location and it’s easy to imagine a fairly entertaining film could have been made out of Woodside spending 90 minutes running from one level to another, searching for his daughter and fighting off various bad guys. (Yes, I realize this would have made the film into a Die Hard rip-off instead of a Taken rip-off but Die Hard rip-offs still work whereas Taken reached its expiration date years ago.) Instead, the film abandoned the game early on and just went through the motions for the remainder of its running time.

Oh well. Maybe Liam Neeson will make a basketball movie someday….