The big, expensive "blockbuster" movies are like ordering an expensive steak or lobster - often worth the stiff price, but sometimes very disappointing. You have the "Casablancas," the "Titanics," but also the turkeys like "Heaven's Gate" and "Bonfire of the Vanities." Sometimes 9- or 10-star results, and other times barely worth one. But films like this one - the inexpensive, TV production can be like getting a hot dog or roast beef sandwich at the established neighborhood diner - nothing spectacular, but usually reliable.

William Moses, the male lead here is a good-looking, capable actor, who has played the "good-guy-next-door" to perfection. In this story, he does a workmanlike job of portraying a man who is a psychopath, a sociopath, and just about every other type of "_______-path" a person could be. His target is played by Alexandra Paul, an old hand in this genre, always having friends, neighbors or acquaintances determined to kill her, with her completely oblivious to this for the initial 75% or so of the film. The performances are credible, the performers attractive, and this is the kind of picture which will not go into anyone's hall of fame, but provides a couple of hours of good entertainment - and if your viewing should be interrupted during the show, the intricacies are not sufficient to spoil your understanding of what's going-on.

In Philadelphia, the psychologist Dr. Liz Manners (Alexandra Paul) is the host of the WLOR Talk Radio Show giving advices about relationships to her audience. When she suggests to her listener Sara Jane (Sophie Gendron) to leave her abusive and obsessive husband Kyle Lundstrom (William R. Moses), Sara runs away home chased by Kyle and is hit by a car, immediately dying. The psychopath Kyle decides to use his money to destroy Dr. Manners' life, and assuming the fake identity of the investor James, he meets her husband Rob (Gary Hudson) and poisons her marriage.

"A Lover's Revenge" is a predictable B-movie with a thriller that seems to be a soap-opera in some moments. The screenplay is flawed in many aspects; for example, Kyle Lundstrom called Dr. Liz many times in her cell phone; therefore, the police could trace his calls and easily reach his identity. Further, they never constructed an identikit picture of James to help the investigation. Last but not the least; the viewer knows the identity of the criminal since the very beginning of the story, breaking the tension. The edition uses too many cuts like in a soap-opera, but the gorgeous Alexandra Paul, William R. Moses and Peter Michael Dillon have great performances. In the end, "A Lover's Revenge" is an enjoyable entertainment. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Amor e Traição" ("Love and Betrayal")

I can be short; Although the plot is in itself not that bad this movie is. Here and there they try to give a little suspense to the viewer, but by giving away all the clues in the first part of the movie, the viewer is left with nothing more than just watching the average B-movie acting performances. The jump from a thriller story to a detective story I do not understand and does not help the quality of the movie. The suspense got further killed, by the plot lines. Every time the killer made another move, he had to say the reason for doing so. If you like some time sitting in front of your television without getting satisfied, you should watch this movie. Otherwise I recommend to stay of it.

A radio psychologist Dr. Liz Manners who offers relationship advice, finds her own life is in crisis, when she learns that because of her career ambition, her husband is having an affair. This has suddenly all come up to the surface, as one of her caller's obsessive husband has sworn revenge against her. He believes Manners drove his wife away from him and when trying to flee his controlled loved, she's killed by a passing car. So, three months have past and he goes by the name of "Ken Malansky" to gain Manners' trust. He pretends to be interested in her business, but secretly he wants to destroy her life in the process.

Why do I put myself in these situations of watching these bland made-for-television Lifetime presentations? I guess I'm hoping for something special. "A Lover's Revenge" keeps one watching, but it just never pays off, as it moves onto one lifeless and very, very contrived scene after another. I can't knock that it's not competently made, but this cookie-cutter thriller just doesn't generate much suspense and becomes too predictable in its implausibly elaborated make-up and over-explained details. Routine dialogues motivated by a bloated script seems to be building up something that never takes off. One real nagging element was how clueless the central characters are about what's really going on. The conveniently twisty story is pure trash at heart, glossed up by slick and polished filming techniques. The distant direction is simply going through the motions and falling into forced patterns. Some absurd actions that do occur are eye-rolling stuff. The tenable performances are particularly good, however William R. Moses was something far less then dominating as the psychopath. There were two choices; having hammy fun or playing it with subtle sinisterness. He was somewhere in between, but never could manage to pull it of convincingly. Alexandra Paul is adorably strong and potent as Dr. Liz Manners. There is capable support in the likes of Gary Hudson and Gabrielle Carteris.

It'll pass the muster if your looking for something comfortable, but I wouldn't go to big lengths to see it. Passably watchable.

The movie was described as a "Sandwich" and not a "Steak.." No argument.. The review I read was "oversimplified.." It does use a lot of "used" themes.. I won't argue, even a little, that the psychopathic killer who "tells" his victims of his plot has been done 1,800 too many times! (NOTE TO MOVIE DIRECTORS AND WRITERS!!)

There are worse movies--

It'd be a better date movie than some of the syrupy stuff out there.. There's no sex or nudity (although Alexandra Paul is gorgeous, if she's reading this!).. It is nice to see a movie that isn't full of "twentysomethings.."

Anyway-- the point is, it wasn't 100% boilerplate.. It's not a nail-biter, for the most part-- but it does hold your interest..

AJ RN

Terrific, well paced thriller with William R. Moses,the Ken Melansky on the old Perry Mason television series giving an absolutely riveting performance as a millionaire psychopath who abuses his wife to no end causing her to make telephone calls to a radio therapist.

When he walks in on one of her calls, he chases her out of the house and she is fatally struck by a car while trying to flee. Moses is outraged and vows revenge on the therapist, really believing that she caused his wife's death.

Moses goes into full acting mode here. He creates situations which totally destroy the therapist's life, marriage, and ultimately leading to the death of the good doctor's wife. In the interim, he has paid a hooker to have a relationship with the husband, tape records certain messages and sets a scheme in motion that can only lead to absolute mayhem and destruction to all those who come within his orbit.

Moses has never been better. He is a cool, calculating maniac who will stop at nothing to achieve his objective. He is sinister all the way and even has police suspecting that the therapist killed her own husband!

This is a very well done movie and is highly recommended.

**SPOILERS** Far out revenge movie involving radio talk show personally Liz Manners, Alexandra Paul, known to her millions of loyal listeners as "Doctor Liz" the on the air, like Dr. Laura, psychiatrist. Dr. Liz has been helping one of her callers Sara Jane, Sophie Genron,to get away from her abusive husband Kyle Lundstorm, William R.Moses, who's a grad triple A control freak. Catching Sara Jane on the phone with Dr. Liz Kyle, coming home unexpectedly, goes bananas chasing his wife out on the street, outside the Lyndstrum mansion, where she's killed by an unsuspecting motorists.

Burning with uncountable rage over his wife as well as "soul-mates" untimely death Kyle is determined to get even with Dr. Liz if it's the last thing he ever does. Kyle not only sets out to destroy Dr. Liz's career and marriage but murder both her and her weak-kneed and emotionally crippled husband Rob,Gary Hudson, as well. Kyle's master plan is to murder Rob and them, after making it look like Dr. Liz did it, murder Liz and make it look like a suicide.

Using the name of just plain James Kyle gets in touch with Rob in him being interested in investing in a hedge fund that he manages. It's then when Kyle/James gets to Dr. Liz in him telling her that he's very interested in donating as much as $100,000.00 in her pet project the Hope Sanctuary. It's the Hope Sanctuary that Dr. Liz was trying to get Kyle's battered and abused wife Sara Jane into before he showed up and drove her, by running blindly into a speeding car, to her death.

***SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON***The movie gets even, in how you want to look at it, better in Kyle getting a high class hooker Ashley, Sonya Salomaa, to strike up a relationship, which wasn't that difficult, with Rob who in turn, together with Kyle, blackmails him.

It's then that Kyle pulls his ace out of his sleeve in bugging the Manners house and recording a conversation where Dr. Liz admits that she withheld evidence that a caller of her actually let her abusive husband, like Kyle, die from injuries after pushing him down a flight of stairs! At the woman trail Dr. Liz, who knew the truth, told the court that the woman's' husband, who was attacking her at the time, fell and cracked is skull on the base of the stairwell and died instantly. Having already did enough to make any vengeful psycho satisfied Kyle goes a step even farther, or crazier, in planning to murder Rob and have Dr. Liz, whom he plans to implicate in Rob's murder, then kill herself with him, not Dr. Liz, doing the killing.

Even though the plot is totally unbelievable the acting, especially by William R. Moses, more then makes up for it. Moses as Kyle Lundstrom is so caught up with his vengeance that he comes across more comical then anything else. The guy just can't control his emotions and is so unstable that you wonder why a trained psychiatrist like Dr. Liz, much less anyone else who runs into that fruitcake, can't see or notice that.

Rob for his part is having trouble at work as well as his marriage with his hedge fund going belly up and leaving him totally dependent on his wife's Dr. Liz income to survive. This cause the once proud and successful investment broker to feel like a total failure and make him susceptible to Kyle's manipulating him with hookers and promises of investing in his business ventures. The only thing that Rob got out of his relationship with Kyle was a bullet in the gut and left, with Kyle gleefully looking on, to slowly bleed to death.

P.S Both actors Alexandra Paul and William R. Moses were reunited in "A Lover's Revenge" after 16 years since staring , as private investigator Ken Malansky and his cute but nutty girlfriend Amy Hastings, in the new Perry Mason TV mystery movies. It's just too bad that Paul & Moses had to be reunited under such unfriendly circumstances here in "A Lover's Revenge" where instead of working together were out to do each other in.

I recently watched this on MyLifetime.com (thank you, Lifetime!) and it was great! Alexandra Paul, William Moses, and Gabrielle Carteris shined in their roles in this movie.

The basic plot of the movie is that Dr. Liz Manners (Paul) is a radio psychologist for a radio station that gives relationship advice. When she advises frequent caller Sara Jane (Sophie Gerdon) to leave her abusive, obsessive husband, Kyle Lundstrom (Moses), she tries to escape from him and is hit and killed by a car in the process. It is then that Kyle works his way into Liz's life and plots revenge against her, blaming her for destroying his marriage.

The acting was fantastic and the story was extremely compelling. While there were a few plot holes, (the most obvious for me is how Kyle found Liz to begin with) the movie was very enjoyable and I recommend you watch it on Lifetime's website or buy it on DVD if you can.

Also, this isn't a complaint or compliment; just something I noticed. At one point, Gabrielle Carteris' character looks up Kyle Lundstrom in the police database and says "I knew it" when she finds him. At first, I thought that meant she was Sara Jane's sister (the one she mentioned during some of her calls to Dr. Manners). But that isn't the case. Just wanted to share that.

Billy Moses, Alexandra Paul, Gary Hudson, and the rest of the cast do a wonderful job in this *on the edge of your seat* psycho thriller made for LIFETIME channel. Billy does a wonderful job playing the psycho out to do in the radio psychologist,(Alexandra Paul), for the accidental death of his wife. His character has no boundaries to what he's willing to do to get even with her. All of the actors in this movie really put a lot of emotion into their characters and although the end was sort of predictable,(the evil one always dies in the end), the storyline kept you wondering in between the beginning and the end. I was completely captivated the entire time the movie was on and I definitely recommend watching this incredible movie!

Sorry, I'm with those who do not like this film. First off it has two of my least favorite actors in it. An actress with a face like a horse, Sonya Salamaa, who was as awful in that soap about the next door neighbor out to get the couple who rented their guest house to her. I didn't like her then and was happy to see her mug get slapped around by William Moses in this one. Secondly that lip suction actress, Sophie Gendron. Like Angelina Jolie it looks as though she has her lips blown up. Not at all attractive and making them look like they have buck teeth. Fortunately she's not in the film that much. In fact both of them have more or less cameos. That leaves Alexandra Paul and Gary Hudson who along with Moses are good to look at. Unfortunately they don't have much to work with in this script. Too bad.

If you like Alexandra Paul in these types of roles, I'd like to recommend you watch for a movie coming out sometime around November/December 2006 titled DEMONS FROM HER PAST. It marks my second film with Alexandra, and in my opinion, DEMONS is even better than A LOVER'S REVENGE. It will air on Lifetime when it is released. In DEMONS, Alexandra plays a woman who served time 25 years ago for a murder she didn't commit, and finally goes back to her hometown in Pennsylvania after her grandmother's death to confront the men who framed her. The film also stars Michael Woods. And if you liked Billy Moses, watch for another movie with him as the bad guy lead called LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER. It will probably premiere in spring 2007, and will be on Lifetime as well.