The Eric Roberts Collection: Wolves of Wall Street (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2002’s Wolves of Wall Street tells a story of high finance and lycanthropy.

Jeff Allen (William Gregory Lee) dreams of being a rich and successful stockbroker but he runs into a huge problem when he tries to find a job on Wall Street. No one is willing to hire him without experience and he can’t get any experience because no one is willing to hire him. A sympathetic bartender named Annabella (Elisa Donovan) tells him to apply for Wolfe Brothers and she even promises to put in a good word for him. Annabella, as we soon learn, has a very powerful friend at Wolfe Brothers.

Jeff is given an internship with Wolfe Brothers and, after a week, he’s offered a job by the head of the firm, Dyson Keller (Eric Roberts). Jeff not only has his dream job but he’s also convinced the initially reluctant Annabella to date him. However, it soon becomes obvious that there are some strange things going on at Wolfe Brothers. The brokers spend a lot time talking about the importance of working as a “pack” and about how they are all kin now. At the end of the week, they hold wild but ritualized parties with prostitutes and neck biting. Jeff is told that he’s not allowed to have any outside interests. He life now revolves around Wolfe Brothers and that means that everything he has also belongs to his bosses. Afterall, they’re the Alphas….

As you’ve probably already guessed, Jeff is working with a bunch of werewolves!

They’re not your usual werewolves. Though they howl at the moon and enjoy biting strangers and they can pick up on scents and pheromones, they don’t actually seem to turn into wolves. And while I’m sure that the lack of dramatic transformation scenes was probably a budget thing, it actually makes the film all the more effective. It leaves you to wonder if the brokers are really werewolves or if they’re just people who have been brainwashed into accepting the Wolfe Brothers lifestyle. In this film, being a werewolf becomes the equivalent of being in a cult.

Eric Roberts makes for a wonderfully sinister cult leader, though I should note that there is a pretty big twist involving his character that I didn’t see coming. With his smirk of a smile and his friendly but nervous manner, Roberts gives a wonderfully sinister performance and, even with limited screentime, he elevates the entire film. Wolves of Wall Street is a wonderfully pulpy and sordid B-movie and one of director David DeCoteau’s best.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

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

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I hear that Maddie is one bad mother….”

“Shut your mouth!”

“But I’m talking about Maddie.”

“Then we can dig it!”

Actually, Maddie (Cindy Busby) is not a mother, though she would like to be. She not even a stepmother, despite what the title says. Instead, she’s just dating the recently widowed Michael (Corin Nemec). If she does end up marrying Michael, Maddie will become a stepmother — perhaps even a WRONG stepmother — to his two daughters, Lilly (Calli Taylor) and Nicole (McKinley Blehm).

It doesn’t take Lilly long to realize that there’s something off about Maddie. For one thing, she catches Maddie trying to check her social media. Then she overhears Maddie claiming to be her mother. And finally, Maddie changes up Lilly’s college admission essay. See, Lilly wrote about how much her late mother influenced her. Maddie, however, changes it into an essay about how much Lilly loves her future stepmother.

Yes, Maddie has some issues. As we discover at the start of the film, she has a history of stalking people. About halfway through the film, she murders two people. Whenever you’re watching a film on Lifetime, you know someone’s going to get murdered at exactly halfway through the film. You can set the time by it.

As with all of Lifetime’s “Wrong” films, Vivica A. Fox has a small role. In this one, she plays Ms. Price, the high school guidance counselor who is extremely unimpressed by Lilly’s college admissions essay. When Ms. Price confronts Lilly about how unimpressive her essay was, Fox delivers the lines with such subtle fury and annoyance that it brought back a lot of high school memories for me. As played by Fox, Ms. Price is the type of high school counselor who scares you to death but who also changes your life for the better. If Ms. Price had been my counselor, I definitely wouldn’t have spent so much time skipping class and shoplifting makeup at Target.

Anyway, the main complaint that you always hear about Lifetime films is that they’re all exactly the same but that’s actually their appeal. They’re fun to watch, precisely because 1) they’re predictable and 2) the viewer is always going to be smarter than the people in the movie. I mean, we can take one look at Maddie and say, “Okay, don’t let her in the house.” However, Michael’s not that smart and, if he was, we really wouldn’t have a movie. Sometimes, you just have to stop crying about plausibility and enjoy what you’re watching.

The Wrong Stepmother gets a big boost from the casting of the always likable Corin Nemec as Michael. I mean, it’s pretty much impossible not to root for a character played by Corin Nemec, even if that character is way too trusting of someone who he met on a dating app. Meanwhile, Cindy Busby is properly psychotic as Maddie and, of course, you’ve got Vivica A. Fox changing lives as Ms. Price.

The Wrong Stepmother is an entertaining Lifetime film. Watch it with your snarkiest friends.

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #32: His Double Life (dir by Peter Sullivan)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(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 the end of July 11th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

(MINOR SPOILERS)

The 32nd film on my DVR was His Double Life, which I recorded off of the Lifetime Movie Network on June 12th.

His Double Life has a plot that will be familiar to anyone who has ever watched a Lifetime film. Scarlett (Cristine Prosperi) is still recovering from the trauma of her father’s death in a traffic accident. It doesn’t help that, five years later, her mother, Linda (Emmanuelle Vaugier), has married her father’s former business partner, Greg (Brian Krause). Scarlett doesn’t trust Greg. Admittedly some of that is because she resents Greg trying to take the place of her father but, at the same time, there is definitely something off about Greg. He tries too hard. He never seems to be sincere when he’s being friendly. He practically oozes sleaze.

And yet, somehow, Scarlett seems to be the only person who has any suspicions about Greg. This is a common theme in Lifetime films. Even when someone is obviously up to no good, only one person ever seems to notice. Everyone else just makes excuses for Greg’s behavior. And you know what? That’s actually a lot more plausible than a lot of critics are willing to admit. No one ever wants to admit that their neighbor might be a serial killer.

Or a spy.

Anyway, Scarlett thinks that there’s something wrong with Greg. So, while visiting home from college, Scarlett decides to follow Greg around. She sees Greg with another woman and is convinced that she caught him cheating. However, the next day, the woman turns up dead!

Is Greg a murderer?

Or is he a spy?

You’ll have to watch the movie to find out!

(He’s both.)

His Double Life is an entertaining Lifetime film, with all that implies. However, there are two things that make this Lifetime film especially memorable.

First off, the film ends with a title card that informs us that, ever since the end of the Cold War, the number of Russian spies in the United States has actually increased. “They’re your neighbors. Your friends. YOUR HUSBANDS!” Seriously, it was so melodramatic and silly (and intentionally so, I like to believe) that I couldn’t help but love it.

Add to that, His Double Life continues the trend of former Degrassi cast members showing up in Lifetime movies. Cristine Prosperi is well-remembered for playing, over the course of three seasons, the endearingly quirky Imogen on Degrassi. Scarlett is a bit more conventional than Imogen but Prosperi still does a great job playing her. For that matter, Brian Krause also does a good job as the menacing Greg.

Enjoy His Double Life! Just remember that the person you watch it with could easily be a Russian spy…