My Father, My Kidnapper (2019 Lifetime)
Cast: Erin Karpluk, Larissa Dias, Andrew Francis
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Synopsis (via Lifetime)
Casey Marsh was born in captivity. Her mother, Jane, was abducted as a teenager and spent six long years in captivity, during which time she gave birth to her daughter, Casey. Jane escaped when Casey was six years old and Timothy Fast, the kidnapper, was arrested and incarcerated. Fast forward twenty years later and Jane has moved on. She has changed her identity, moved to a new town, and built a normal life for herself and her daughter. When local women start to go missing, the method of abduction is eerily similar to Jane’s and she reveals to Casey that Fast had an accomplice. Then Jane suddenly disappears and Casey must face the dark secrets of the past to find her mother before it’s too late.
Thoughts
A mother and daughter run away from a man and drop a teddy bear. The mother hides her daughter in a barn and confronts the man. (Who is the little girl’s father.) The man is a complete psychopath, and the little girls runs into the safety of the police officers’ arms.
Flash to the present day, Charlotte, who goes by Casey, is now living in a safe suburban house with her mother. They are rebuilding their lives. Casey is accepted into the college of her choice and Lena works at a hair salon. They think they are safe but a man in a hat and flannel is going around town abducting girls. (Like Alyssa Kane, a barista.) It is the 20th anniversary of their abduction, and women are being abducted on significant dates related to the two women. A handsome detective comes to their house and points out similarities; he thinks there may be a copycat. After the detectives leave for the night, the women to have a PTSD breakdown.
The man in the hat and flannel is still going around town buying knives and being creepy. Casey and Lena are outed about their true identities on twitter by some jerk. Lena is then abducted by the man in the hat and flannel who pretends to be a client looking for a quick haircut. Casey puts up missing person flyers and then assists detectives in their work on the case?!?! They play Casey a tape from when they were brought in after being abducted that implicates another person was there during the kidnapping just watching.
Lena wakes up chained in a warehouse next to Alyssa Kane, the barista who is screaming for help. Lena gives Alyssa a pep talk, but it doesn’t work because the man in the flannel and hat is there watching them the whole time. The man’s name is Jacob. Later they hear a teenage boy outside and scream for help. The boy comes in to save them but is killed.
Casey goes to see the father in jail. They shout at each other a lot, but she learns that Jacob is her father’s son and her half brother. She devises a plan to lure Jacob with a public question and answer about her abduction as a child. It works and Jacob shows up in a hoodie looking very suspicious. The audience kind of turns on Casey and thinks she is a murder just like her father. Casey doesn’t get Jacob, but her friend turns out to be a true-crime obsessed person who is into online chat croups focused on the crime. They find one user named Mr.Bear88, who is probably Jacob. The detectives work to locate the IP address.
They don’t need the IP address because Casey and the handsome detective find Jacob at the store where he bought the knife. They trail him out into the middle of nowhere. (Which would be pretty obvious.) The detective follows Jacob in the woods and confronts him by some train tracks and attempts to arrest him, but he gets away. Casey also runs through the woods and finds the body of Alyssa. Then she gets a tracker and waits in Jacob’s truck for him to bring her to her mother.
Knowing that the police are on to him, Jacob throws gasoline all over the warehouse and on Lena. Casey follows him inside and looks for her mother. Jacob catches her and is excited to see Casey. She sprays him with spray paint, and Lena almost kills him with her shackles. Once she is free, Lena and Casey run outside and send the detectives to get Jacob, who is taken into custody.
Casey and Lena return to normal life. The detective shows up to the salon and gives Casey the locket that she wore at the beginning of the movie; I neglected to mention because who cares. She invites him to join her at her study abroad program in Italy, and they kiss. How old was Casey again? I’m confused. I’m also on cold medicine.
Side Note
Minority Report: Alyssa Kane, Casey’s friend, Detectives
Also known as The Past Never Dies.
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Overall rating
🔪🔪🔪 (3 Knives)
🍷🍷🍷🍷 (4 glasses of wine required.)
*Photo Credit: © 2019 Lifetime
Hey man,
I know this is almost 4 years late, but this movie was awful.
That one scene still gets to me. It was the graffiti kid trying to save the 2 women and he gets his jugular slashed in the process.
Remember that scene? Tired of writers for this network taking common sense out of the equation.
You agree?