Simply A Masterpiece

good back-story, and good acting

Fantastic!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

This very familiar story may have been inspired by several real life crimes, cobbled together for this predictable exercise. Three teenage girls, led by a bully, gang up against a fourth girl and inadvertently kill her while trying to "teach her a lesson". Among the remaining three, mostly-innocent Bianca is also conveniently mostly-at-odds with her single mother and has left a trail of mostly-damning clues; the second girl, Sarah, is a weak-willed asthmatic follower, and the third, Fallon, is an ice cold, manipulating sociopath. Predictably, the most decent people in the story suffer the earliest consequences, as if to underscore the point that no good deed goes unpunished. Because she is the first to spill the beans, Bianca is charged with the crime ("Accused at 17") and conspired against by the other two. Trying to clear her daughter's name, Bianca's mother investigates but has her daughter's habit of leaving misleading clues when Sarah is subsequently also found dead. Evil Fallon plants evidence and tells lies, and also has a shallow, narcissistic mother who sunbathes by their pool, practices yoga and drinks martini's from an over-sized martini glass. The only familiar actor in the cast is William R. Moses, wasted in a one-note role as Fallon's clueless but decent father. It all leads to a formulaic conclusion where everything is revealed in one scene less than five minutes before the movie ends. You sort of see it coming.

Teenager Anderson is accused of murdering classmate Taylor after she and her friends (Maeve and Montgomery) play a prank on her for sleeping with boyfriend McClendon. The accused's mother (Gibb) must now try to find the truth in order to save her daughter from a longtime prison sentence, and soon suspects that it was best friend Montgomery who may have framed her. Yet another Lifetime Movie about a complex situation that is resolved by simplistic plot devices. However, one must give credit where credit is due; the teenagers' parents (particularly Gibb and Moses) are incredibly likable and believable, and have impressively sharp dialogue. Could've been a lot lot worse.** (out of four)

Accused at 17 is a story of three high school girls and how their lives intertwine when one of them decides to take revenge on a fourth girl (Dory, played by Lindsay Taylor). The underlying idea and theme are sound, unfortunately the movie is undermined by a weak plot, some marginal acting and lack of extensive character development. This could be a powerful film in Hollywood mode, and it certainly evokes a lot of emotions about family relationships, loyalties and friendships. But in many ways the plot gets too far-fetched with Bianca's mom doing the police work rather than the police themselves. When the film ends, Bianca and her mom seem happy, but where is the grief that two young girls have died, and one of the girls is Bianca's best friend Sarah.The plot is straightforward enough. Bianca (well played by Nicole Anderson)is a typical 17 year old, doing well at school, experimenting with partying and has a steady boyfriend. But when she discovers that her boyfriend cheated on her with another girl at a party, her "best friend" Fallyn decides they should get revenge on that girl by driving her out to a remote canyon, humiliating her and leaving her there to walk back alone. This act in itself could be considered felony kidnapping, with Fallyn as the mastermind and Sarah as the accomplice. Bianca, who arrives in her own car confronts Dory, but then leaves. She is unaware that a scuffle then ensues between Dory and Fallyn, and ends with an enraged Fallyn killing Dory by smashing a rock into her head. This is perhaps the most powerful part of the movie, as teenage girls often conflict but its not often they kill each other. While Sarah wants to do the right thing by calling 911 and we at least see her goodness, the evil Fallyn is only concerned with hiding the body and keeping herself out of trouble. Thus the players are cast with Fallyn becoming the villain. When the police start to investigate, Fallyn decides that the only way to keep herself out of legal trouble is to frame Bianca for the crime. Sarah, who is under Fallyn's control, goes along initially. But later she realizes who her real friend is and she defies Fallyn. The movie was spoiled somewhat by the sketchy police investigation and thin alibis cast by the two girls who were there when Dory died. Bianca's mom eventually sets a trap and Fallyn falls into it. The subplot of the movie is the relationship between Bianca, her mom and her mom's boyfriend, playing upon the vulnerability of a teenage girl who has to deal with the breakup of her parents marriage. The movie ends somewhat happily, whereas it should not have, it could have communicated much better the magnitude of what happened if they showed Sarah's funeral and Bianca breaking down at the loss of her friend. The truth is for a teenage girl, friends are everything and to lose your best friend would be completely devastating.

"Accused at 17" seems like slow going at first — an incomprehensible set of opening shots, a title reading "Five days earlier," and a plot that for the first half-hour seems like yet another yawn-inducing tale of high-school rivalries and a put-upon heroine (Nicole Gale Anderson) who idealizes her dead father and can't stand the new boyfriend (Jason Brooks, better looking than the anonymous tall, lanky, sandy-haired guys Lifetime usually casts in these parts) of her mom Jacqui (Cynthia Gibb, top-billed). We that at some point the daughter, Bianca, is going to be accused of murder but we don't know whom she's going to kill until one day at a party — which Bianca can't attend because her mom's boyfriend is throwing an elaborate dinner party for them at his home — Bianca's boyfriend Chad (Reiley McClendon) is vamped and seduced by school slut Dory (Lindsay Taylor), giving us the sort of soft-core porn scene that makes a lot of otherwise lame Lifetime movies watchable. Bianca and her friends Fallyn (Janet Montgomery) and Sarah (Stella Maeve) work out a bizarre revenge plot that ends with Dory being bashed in with a rock in a remote canyon. As silly as much of "Accused at 17" is — one gets the impression through much of the first hour that it could just as well have been called "Valley Girls Go Bad" — it takes on power and force when (here comes the spoiler) Fallyn, Dory's actual killer, not only allows Bianca to take the rap but actively frames her for it and, in the film's most chilling scene, murders Sarah by depriving her of her anti-asthma medication just as Sarah is about to go to the police and implicate Fallyn. Janet Montgomery turns in an absolutely chilling performance as a teen girl who quickly descends from adolescent angst to criminal mania; if she keeps this up she'll be a good candidate for modern-day femme fatale roles as she grows up (watch for her!).