Lifetime Review: 'Family in Hiding'

Carol Peterson (Brenda Strong) was an average single mother living an average life, working at an insurance firm to support her two teenage children, Matt (Brett Dier) and Alicia (Elyse Levesque). One night changes everything for the Peterson family, however, when Carol finds herself bearing witness to the murder of US attorney Mike Kanagawa (Hiro Kanagawa). The murderer is notorious drug kingpin Roger Nahanee (Hrothgar Mathews), who killed Mike after learning he was building a case against him.

After narrowly escaping with her life, Carol goes to the FBI, with Ray Cloninger (Jerry Wasserman) arranging for Carol and her children to enter the witness protection program to await trial—lest Nahanee eliminate her like previous witnesses against him. But as Carol and her children struggle to adapt to their new life, it becomes clear that Nahanee is more than prepared to use every resource at his disposal to track the Petersons down and silence them permanently. Will Carol's attempt to do the right thing cost her family their lives?

Coming courtesy of Johnson Production Group, Family in Hiding is an older Lifetime flick that, for the longest time, was an evasive movie for me to find. But after having given up on the search, luck had me stumbling across this hard-to-find flick, and thus, this review has come to be. But despite my joy at having my long wait over, Family in Hiding is not a film that particularly warrants such a wait. Rather, it reminds me of the MarVista Netflix release Staged Killer: not terrible, but lacking the thrilling Lifetimey spark suggested to be present by its trailer.

A notable misstep responsible for the lack of thrills in Family in Hiding would be the film's plot focus, as the film spends much time focusing on the ins and outs of the witness protection program and the Peterson family's struggles to adapt, with Nahanee and his team's attempts to track them down being put in the background on multiple occasions. The witness protection program rundowns go for a bit longer than necessary, and while the struggles for Carol and her children to adjust to their admittedly terrible situation is a worthy plot to focus on, it would've been better to have it run in tandem with Nahanee and his crew trying to find them, rather than overriding it so often. Even when Nahanee and his team do have run-ins with the Petersons, the sequences are often over so quickly that you hardly have the chance to get invested or truly become worried for the family's safety, leaving much of Family in Hiding lacking in thrills or suspense.

But what Family in Hiding lacks in action, it makes up for with its solid cast that makes you care for the protagonists in spite of the fumbled plot. As Carol Peterson, Brenda Strong is a force of nature, bringing ferocity to the scenes where Carol fights to ensure her children's safety and demand the FBI give them the protection they need, as well as bringing to the scenes where her Mama Bear front falls to show her vulnerability. Elyse Levesque and Brett Dier both do their best at bringing sympathy to Alicia and Matt, though both teens definitely had moments of severely testing my patience with how many times they end up putting themselves and Carol in danger. SPOILER ALERT Matt, in particular, was most grating when his joining the basketball team nearly resulted in his family getting killed, and he took the opportunity to make the whole situation about himself and how he's struggled with lying about who he is. While the scene is very well performed by Dier, the sentiment behind it comes off as self-centered as well as abrupt, as we're never allowed to see the isolation and bullying Matt was supposedly the victim of. Alicia fares better due to her reasons for hating her new life being shown in more detail, and the fact that she (unlike Matt) admits to her mistakes and apologizes for them. Spoilers Over

While he suffers from his character's lack of screen time throughout the film, Hrothgar Mathews does what he can with the time he's given to play up Nahanee as the arrogant and ruthless criminal mastermind as the film builds him up as. Raoul Ganeev is clearly having fun throwing himself into Nahanee's main henchman Migikovski, and Jerry Wasserman does well playing Cloninger as an exasperated man desperate to take down a dangerous criminal who has evaded him for too long. Christopher Jacot provides an emotional portrayal of Alicia's boyfriend Brian which gives credibility to Alicia's strong feelings for him overriding her better judgement, and Hiro Kanagawa makes the most of his ill-fated role to live up to the tough-on-crime attorney reputation Mike is given, and is memorable for putting up a good fight before meeting his inevitable demise.

(On a nitpicky note, it seems odd for the film to end on a PSA singing the praises of the witness protection program, given how the events of Family in Hiding—for the most part—don't speak too highly of the program's effectiveness or the people operating it)

As a whole, Family in Hiding is not the most memorable film in Lifetime's collection, with the poor plotting and lack of thrills (even during the climax!) making this a film that will have thrill-seeking Lifetime viewers snoozing. But with the strong cast making up for what the story lacks, Family in Hiding has something there to prevent it from sinking down to the likes of Ex-Wife Killer or Killer Vacation. For a film to unwind to on your downtime, you could do worse than giving Family in Hiding a try.

Score: 5.5 out of 10 German chocolate birthday cakes.