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Family Rescue aka Country Justice
R0 - America - MPI Home Video Review written by and copyright: Pat Pilon (17th April 2007). |
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The Film
 The cover says that George C. Scott will do anything to protect his family, even break the law. I had this image of Patton walking into a room with a shotgun and starting to blow everybody away. As it happened, this scene never occurred, but I wasn't disappointed by the movie. On the contrary, I was pleasantly surprised. Director Graeme Campbell handles the material with care, bringing out some nice emotions while keep the movie, for the most part, fairly realistic. Inspired by a true story, the movie has a 15-year-old girl having a baby after being raped, then being taken to court by the man, her estranged mother's boyfriend, who wants custody of the child. With the help of her grandfather she tries to keep her child, while protecting herself from her obsessed stalker. It sounds very bleak, but it never gets heavy-handed, which somewhat surprised me, and everything is kept in check with a nice tone. This is more than likely a highly dramatized account of the real events. The court scenes, for example, are a joke. Whether the judge's decision is good or bad, there's no way to take the ruling seriously, given the simplistic nature of the events leading up to them. Mr. Scott's flight from the law is similarly a bit movie-like. The plot is nothing special and no events happen with great surprise. The other scenes are good, though, ranging from TV-movie-good to simply good. You can pretty much see things happening before they happen, but only if you're familiar with the type of movie. It's nothing bad, because the movie has a nice pace and so never gets long. George C. Scott does a very nice job as the gruff grandfather who wants to protect his family (even if it means breaking the law), and you believe he cares for both his granddaughter and great-grandchild. The lovely Rachel Leigh Cook is very sympathetic as the young mother, though sometimes I found it hard to understand her decisions, but this is a problem with the screenplay, not the actress. Don Diamont is nothing special as the man obsessed with Mrs. Cook – all he does is look obsessed and run after her. It services the movie well enough and so shouldn't be taken too much as a criticism. The overall impression of the movie is very good. It handles dark subjects with a nice touch and though the real events were probably much more troubling and emotional for the people involved, the movie probably changed the events enough to twist the story to make something more fit for television. The end result is enjoyable and very watchable. This is part of MPI's The True Stories Collection series, which is comprised of TV movies inspired by real life events. By the way, the back cover has a few errors. One word is missing from a sentence, and the baby is George C. Scott's great-grandchild, not grandchild. The movie is also known as Country Justice.
Video
1.33:1 full frame. The picture is good enough, but this is a TV movie and it looks like a TV movie. There's nothing especially good or bad about the video quality, other than it being adequate. The colours are okay, but may be a bit faded. The print is good, though, with very few blemishes. The contrast is okay, but the colours aren't perfect so there's definitely some missing definition in some scenes. The compression is good, however, with no signs of edge enhancement or pixelation. The print is far from perfect but if you watch it on a tube TV it should be passable.
Audio
The movie is only available in an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track (without subtitles). The volume, I think, is a bit low, and the dialogue seems a bit muffled. Mrs. Cook's delivery and Mr. Scott's gruff voice can be hard to understand at times, but the rest of the sounds are fine. The balance is good enough, with score and other elements being mixed in pretty well with the voices. The range is not big, so the track handles everything pretty well.
Extras
Nada
Overall
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