Till Death Do You Part
Tom Weston (Gerald McRaney - The A-Team) is in his 40s and is suffering a mid life crisis, he tries to keep up with the young men playing football, drives a flashy sports car and on seeing the attractive Bobbi (Josie Bissett) at the bowling alley attempts to chat to her despite being married. He succeeds when he starts waiting outside of her work and wins over the insecure 19 year old who falls for his lines about being single and in love with her. Even when she discovers that Tom is married she buys his line about wanting to get divorced although truth be told Tom has no plans of divorcing his wife as he would lose everything. But what Tom plans instead is to kill his wife and make it look like someone was trying to kill him. But when things don't go to plan he has to take desperate measures to protect himself.
Deadly Vows is one of those movies which rests firmly on one character and one actor to keep you interested. In this case the character is Tom and the actor is Gerald McRaney as we need to be intrigued by the double life he creates, the lies he tells and his schemes he concocts in order to be interested by what happens. And in fairness McRaney does a good job of playing a man who becomes caught in a midlife rut and goes to extreme measures to try and recapture his youth. In the scenes where his wife tries to be nice to him only for Tom to snap you get a real sense that this is a man who has come to hate his life and is desperate enough to go to any lengths to get what he wants.
But whilst McRaney sells the part of suffering from a midlife crisis it has to be said that when it comes to his stalking courtship of Bobbi and the way he manipulates her it seems so over the top. It makes me wonder as "Deadly Vows" is inspired by actual events and I can't but help think that there has been plenty of dramatic licence used in turning those events in to a movie. I just find it hard to believe that even as a shy and naive nineteen year old that Bobbi would buy into his advances as they border on the creepy. I also find it hard to buy into that friends of Tom's and his wife would let him carry on with another much younger woman.
As for how all this ends up with Tom coming up with what seems a far fetched scheme to make out that someone was trying to kill him in order to kill his wife in a car explosion well as I said it seems far fetched. But at the same time it is so far fetched it is interesting especially when it comes to the lengths which Tom will go to get what he wants be it fake threat letters to arranging.... well I will leave that for you when you watch "Deadly Vows".
What this all boils down to is that "Deadly Vows" is an entertaining movie but more because it seems so far fetched more than anything else. But it does feature a good performance from McRaney which works well enough to keep you interested.
