The Blonde Built the Bomb in the Basement
When Sara (Erika Eleniak - He Sees You When You're Sleeping) married Jim (John Wesley Shipp - Road Rage) she thought that everything was perfect. Unfortunately what Sara didn't know was that Jim had been married before and when his ex wife dies his disabled daughter comes to live with them. But with Sara now being treated like little more than a maid to a demanding disabled child she finds herself falling for Jim's best friend, Raymond (Jerry Kroll - Officer Down), who together plot to kill Jim inorder to get their hands on an insurance pay out. Unfortunately a clause in the insurance policy means there is no pay out unless Sara dies at which point the disabled daughter gets it all, and the detectives begin to suspect Jim's death was suspicious with Sara being involved.
As I watched "Second to Die" I had this feeling that I had seen the same storyline used in another movie but couldn't rack my brains to come up with the title. Maybe it hasn't been but it certainly is a movie with a generic base storyline where we have a woman who is in cahoots with a lover to kill her husband to claim the insurance but then finds herself under suspicion of having murdered him. Yes there are subplots from the disable daughter to a whole subplot surrounding Sara's sister reading though her journal as to what happened. The trouble is that "Second to Die" is all too routine even when it comes to twists when it comes to Sara and Raymond's relationship.
Aside from the storyline of course the big thing which "Second to Die" has is Erila Eleniak and credit where it is due as she throws herself in to her role. Unfortunately at times Eleniak delivers the sort of forced performance which would be better suited to a soap opera. Then again pretty much everyone in the movie delivers the sort of performance which doesn't really delivers drama but over delivers the dialogue, which frankly often feels banal.
What this all boils down to is that "Second to Die" is just a regular thriller which sees murder deception and a lot of other stuff which you will find in many other thrillers but it lacks anything to really make it memorable or stand out from the crowd.
