Forced Adoption
Everything seemed just right for Tim (Sean Astin) and his wife Cheryl (Samaire Armstrong) with their adopted daughter Mona, that is until her biological father Kevin (Brendan Fehr) shows up in the neighbourhood having been released from prison on a technicality. Uncomfortable with Kevin moving in next door and always watching them especially as they are convinced he will snatch her. With the police unable to act as Kevin isn't breaking the law Tim plans to take matters in to his own hands to protect Mona by buying a gun even though Cheryl is against guns.
When you learn to play golf one of the things you are taught is not to try and force the ball, let the club do work. It is something which I feel every actor and director needs to learn because far too often a movie can be wrecked by those involved trying to force things from their character traits to the delivery of dialogue to the harmony of a married couple. And it is the constant forcing of things which causes "Adopting Terror" to fail which on some levels doesn't surprise me as this is made by "The Asylum" who are better known for making monster movies and disaster movies with the words super and mega in the title.
Now in fairness the actual storyline to "Adopting Terror" is not bad with this couple with an adopted child being stalked by the biological father who had the child removed from him. Watching Kevin basically get in their face without breaking the law whilst at times ridiculously far fetched is entertaining and it immediately makes you suspicious of a certain character when it comes to how comes he could track down his baby after it was adopted.
But as I said "Adopting Terror" suffers from far too much forcing from Samaire Armstrong over doing the stressed out, nervous first time mum to Sean Astin being the easy going dad who in a self centred manner takes baby Mona out jogging in her pram, running right down the middle of the road. Then there is Brendan Fehr who in trying to be intimidating only comes across as stiff as a board. Add to this a director who focuses in too much on the actor's faces which adds to that constant feeling of forced. Which is a shame as there are some nice moments chucked in there which work, which make you sit up and pay attention but they are few and far between.
What this all boils down to is that "Adopting Terror" sadly doesn't work and through out the entire movie everything seems forced which makes it incredibly hard work.
