User Reviews

***SPOILERS**** Black widow like movie with the scheming and conniving as well as murderous Olivia Whitfield aka Grace Miller who's played by the hot to trot blond bombshell Elizabeth Berkly. Olivia is on a tear in the movie by her getting rich love sick and impressionable young men to marry her and then end up offing them. This is all accomplished in them getting into a staged accident with the help of her boyfriend and accomplice the pointy nosed Ed Bixler, David Ury.

Opening up a phony free Woman's health clinic in L.A Olivia becomes the talk of the town in helping the underprivileged women in the area who need medical attention but don't have any health insurance. It turns out that Olivia's fee clinic is actually a money laundering operation that uses the funds it gets for itself, or Olivia and Ed Bixler, and no one else. It's when Olivia starts to work on the really naive and a bit muddled brained Danny Keegan, Randall Batinkoff, that his on the ball girlfriend photo journalist Melanie "Mel" Dempsey, Alicia Coppola, starts to see through her scam. First what can Olivia see in the schmucky and birdbrained Danny other then his bank account which is about the only thing that can impress the money hunger hussy anyway!

Starting to check up on Olivia's background Mel gets help from her assistant at the L.A Post the plucky Finn Driver, Adriana DeMeo, and her computer geek boyfriend Henry, Jeremy Howard. It's soon discovered that Olivia has been running this free clinic racket for some three years with her having been married twice to rich and not too bright husbands who ended up dead in mysterious accident with her ending up getting all their money! Meanwhile Danny has been completely put under Olivia's spell to the point where he's about to throw his life and money away by falling into the trap she set for him! That's unless Mel can get him to see the truth before the trap's sprung!

***SPOILERS*** Worth watching only for the totally off the wall ending where Olivia gets it, and gets it good, just as her plan was about to succeed. Danny who never for a second suspected what Olivia had in store for him finally saw the light at the end of the barrel of a gun that Olivia whipped out on him! Exposed as the black widow killer that she is and with Mel and the LAPD about to put her out of commission Olivia decides "Dirty Harry" style to shoot it out with the law! Holding Mel hostage and firing away Olivia is out-gunned and sent to the bottom,of Danny's swimming pool, by the onrushing squad of policemen before she can do any more damage!

I just finished watching Black Widow (2008) after reading some of the reviews. I tend to read a few reviews first to get a general idea about a movie to see if it is worth the watch, but this time, I had watched about 10 minutes before searching it out. I thought it would be worse than what it was based on the reviews I read. It is def. A made-for-tv movie, but I kept watching out of curiosity. The acting did not get cheesy until the pool scene at the end. Man, was it fake! I do not know what the big furor is about Elizabeth Berkley. I thought she did a pretty good job although some of her 'hang time' scenes should have been edited out. Too many times she and the others seemed to be waiting for the director to yell, "Cut". Berkley is so beautiful! It is obvious she has lost weight and it looks good on her! BTW, I never saw the 'goof' at the end. I watched this on Tubi. They must have edited the end or something. It won't win awards, but it kept me watching till the end. That's all I needed!

The typical storyline of a woman faking her identity, marrying rich men then killing them for the money. Elizabeth Berkley is a terrible actress and the rest of the actors weren't much better. Could have used my time better.

A photographer for a local paper (LA Post) becomes suspicious of her best friend's new girlfriend, a leggy Ph.D that runs a free clinic in LA. Using the paper's considerable research resources and armed with a camera, she turns investigative reporter to discover the true identify of the philanthropist black widow.

Elizabeth Berkley's one dimensional portrayal of the main character is simple and unsympathetic, a blonde-haired black widow whose plastic smile and ill-intentions are so obvious that it leaves the viewer in awe of the sheer stupidity possessed by those who believe her to be the beacon of philanthropic goodness. Alicia Coppola, the film's protagonist, does a better job, but is outshined by her merry duo of jr. journalist helpers that assist in solving this case. Perhaps the best part of this film are the wealthy drunk couple towards the end of the movie, who bring a little breathing space to this stuffy suspense.

For a Lifetime film, this wasn't too bad. I was rooting for the protagonist, but was seriously hoping that she killed her best friend for being ridiculously gullible.

I do believe that much of this film, production and supporting acting, comes from our friends in Canada.

**SPOILER WITH QUESTION** At the film's end, when our protagonist takes a bullet to the arm and passes out, several people rush to her aid. One individual, who was a doctor that worked in the same free clinic as the black widow, simply leaned over her friend's body in concern while the best friend yelled for an ambulance. Was she really a doctor or just someone with exceptionally poor bedside manners?