A Crime Against Cyber Crimes
Abby Turner's (Majandra Delfino) life seemed just about perfect with her top job as head of Internet security design for Custodis Systems as well as a seemingly perfect boyfriend in Josh (Andrew W. Walker). But then her boyfriend dies in a freak explosion and then having quickly returned to work the FBI show up to inform her that Josh was not who he appeared and was in fact Jared who was known to the FBI for being a bank robber who had form for seducing women to steal their passwords and gain access to money through the internet. With Abby now a possible target for who ever is behind all of this she needs to use her I.T. skills and wits to solve the mystery and save her life.
I'm now at that age where what once was pivotal to making a movie work has changed, the days of easy on the eye or being action packed have fallen down the pecking order and often the most important thing is "do I care". Take the made for TV movie "Web of Lies", the question of do I care about Abby and the internet fraud, hacking, identity theft going on can sadly be answered with a resounding "No". It simply means that this TV movie never once drew me in to the unfolding and often unravelling storyline presented which I will tell you now felt like it relied on the audience being naive to technology and software interfaces to work.
Part of the trouble with "Web of Lies" is actually how it starts with Abby returning home and finding Josh sitting in the corner of her room and before you know it they are getting it on in an over the top manner. But this is followed by Josh apparently meeting his maker in a car explosions which considering Josh is played by Andrew W. Walker you can take a stab that he won't have been killed. And sadly even when you get passed this opening the rest of the movie has a lack of subtlety be it tacky night club scenes or unbelievable FBI agents who clearly don't know protocol.
What this all boils down to is that "Web of Lies" is in truth pretty stereotypical of the made for TV thriller market especially when it is clear this is made for I guess a daytime audience who appreciate the easy to follow nature of a movie. But this lacks the most important ingredient and that is something to make us care for the characters and what is going on.
