Secrets Exposed (2022 TV Movie) User Reviews

Insanely bad......just really BAD

[deedrala · 1/10 · 11 September 2022]

"Secrets Exposed"

Stupid title - stupid movie. Nothing redeemable or remarkable other than it being remarkably bad in every way. I try to give these things a chance, but other than the exceptionally well done true crime movies that Lifetime gifts us with now and then, their fictional movies are nothing other than the same elementary school plots and stories over and over again with different so-called 'actors'. And usually the same character names used repeatedly (Allison, Sarah, Hannah, Zoe, Chloe, Kate, David, Michael, Sam, etc.)

Dumbest parts:

• The professor barely looked old enough to be a college student, yet the mom, who had to be at least early 40s, ended up in his arms after finding her daughter's tank top on fire - huh?? - and had to turn down his advances. They looked like mother and son.

• She finds the dead girl, then a bag is put over her head from behind, and it goes to commercial. Next scene is her telling the cop that whoever did it must've done it to scare her into not talking....?? So they put the thing over her head and then take it off and run away?? My neighbor's dog could write a better script than this crap.

• The mom is a lawyer yet spends the night at the (stranger) professor's place for convenience since she lives so far away, while they work to find her daughter. She couldn't afford a hotel room for a night or two??

• Last but not least: no one who wants to be anonymous/unidentifiable would use the name of their well-known company (PVTech) in the cam girl chats, which should go without saying, yet the supposedly smart lawyer mom instantly believed it was actually Paul Vargas, the owner of the company. And how dense is the professor for using such a blatantly obvious ruse to implicate Vargas?? Not to mention a glaring goof/plothole: the lawyer mom pointed out the large amounts PVTECH was paying the cam girls - such as $6000 - which Paul Vargas could easily afford. But when it came out in the end that it was the young professor trying to frame him, it wasn't explained where HE would get that kind of money.

Did NOT enjoy, not even a little bit, as I do with most other LMN over-the-top guilty pleasures. This one had nothing going for it.

Grade F - 1 out of 10.

A Mother's Intuition

[lavatch · 7/10 · 26 March 2022]

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Beaumont is a stellar student in computer technology at Gibson University. But she feels compelled to begin the lucrative work of a "cam girl" as her single parent mother Joanna is still paying off her tuition from law school after the death of her husband.

There were many loose ends in the film scenario when Lizzie is kidnapped. It was never fully explained why she was taken, where she was being held captive, and why she was kept alive.

A number of scenes were inadvertently comical, such as the burning of Lizzie's tank top outside of a building. The mother's intuition was so strong that it affected her olfactory sense when she smells smoke from inside the apartment! Another moment that was a howler was when Zoey, the mild-mannered, girl-next-door RA of Lizzie's dorm, is "busted" as a cam girl herself by the quick-thinking Joanna. Zoey was a vision to behold in her purple wig and negligee!

A budding romance ensues between Joanna and Lizzie's computer professor, Trevor Notting. Trevor is helpful in using his skills to hack into multiple computers to discover evidence pointing to the tech magnate Paul Vargas. Was Vargas the user name "PVTECH" who was one of the clients of Lizzie and young Nicole?

One of the best lines in the film was spoken by Joanna to the tough enforcer of Vargas named Benjamin Ruggiero: "I'll sue you so thoroughly your grandchildren will owe me money in damages." A financial takeaway from the film was the repercussion of the exorbitant cost of a college education today. Joanna is a woman in her 40s still paying off loans. Her daughter felt compelled to set up shop in her dorm room as a cam girl to pay her tuition. It appears as though one of her "clients" became obsessed.

But appearances may be deceiving as one of the film's central themes was about trust. Young Lizzie discovers that there was no one she could trust other than herself...or her devoted mother, who would stop at nothing to rescue her.

Mom talks like an avid watcher of CSI, Criminal Minds, and every "missing girl" movie

[CranberriAppl · 5 September 2022]

This is typical Lifetime, the dialogue is terrible. I won't rehash the synopsis, but I'll talk about the execution. While it's refreshing to not see the mom as a nervous wreck always scraeming "where's my daughter?!" like most Lifetime moms in these movies, the acting is still a bit dry. Referring to my title, she talks like she watches every procedural. She knows everything the police and a hacker should be doing.

Why would such a high profile client use such a username? That would be dumb as bricks.

There's also a weird scene where Joanna (mom) finds her daughter's friend dead in the student's apartment, and someone comes up behind her and puts a bag over her head. Fade to black for commercials....now the police are there. Um, ok so what happened? How did she get away from her attacker? She's still in the apt and obviously was able to call 911. The movie budget likely didn't have room for too much action, but she didn't even (onscreen) explain to the police what happened. I even rewound it because I was sure I blinked and missed something.

It's part of Stranger Danger, I guess, but it's not that great. I considered turning it off after about a half hour, but then I really turned it off when the mom started strategizing that coffee and pastries would break down the suspect. I mean, it's obviously going to, but this movie is too silly. Even for Lifetime. The dialogue is so PSA-like that it makes it hard to listen to. Of course the police are useless, as they oft are in these. It's also a bit much that the baseline reason for Lizzie's choices is her mom's student loans. Come on.

It's also interesting how the professor has zero problems hacking and breaking the law (on campus at that), but in a different movie (My Husband's Killer Girlfriend), an actual criminal hacker shows restraint. Mom and the Professor are doing all of this out in the open in the school's library, lol. She's also staying at his apartment...while her daughter is missing in a strange place and she really has no reason to trust anybody she doesn't know? After a day, they are resisting feelings. Come on. There's also a goofy scene where a henchman bum rushes Joanna and takes some papers. Lol, it was too goofy to be real.

It's not unwatchable, but there are better my-daughter-is-missing stories on this channel. After I turned it off, I looked up a summary and sure enough, it ended exactly how I predicted. You'll honestly see it coming a mile away.

P. S. At no point does the school get involved in this...never mind that a student is missing and another is dead.