Lifetime Review: 'Revenge for Daddy'

For Lisa Clark (Sarah Butler), her life has gotten somewhat back on track following her father's death in an unsolved hit-and-run. With a stable job, supportive friends, and a doting mother in Barbara (Joely Fisher), the only trouble Lisa finds herself dealing with in the present comes in the form of her love life. Fresh off a break-up from her cheating boyfriend Bobby (Charlie Gorrilla), Lisa is ambivalent on re-entering the dating scene, in spite of goading from Barbara and her best friend Abby (Samantha Cope).

That appears to change when an odd occurrence with Lisa's online dating profile leads her to meet Michael Patterson (Clayton Chitty), a handsome and charming man who appears to be just what Lisa's looking for after Bobby. But Lisa's good fortune takes a dark turn when she finds herself as the prime suspect in a work colleague's murder, with no memory of what happened on the night in question. As Lisa fights to prove her innocence to the skeptical investigators, it becomes clear that she's been the victim of a frame job--and the culprit is closer to home than Lisa realizes.

The marketing for Revenge for Daddy is an unfortunate case of history repeating itself--though in this case, the "histories" are only separated from each other by five days. Five days prior to premiering Revenge for Daddy, Lifetime premiered The Black Widow Killer--a film that had a haphazardly constructed mystery which was essentially completely undone due to some ill-conceived advertising decisions (namely a spoiler-y poster and synopsis). In Revenge for Daddy's case, however, its "mystery" is not only obliterated by its spoiler-overdosing synopsis (which while not revealing the killer, spells out their history and motivation), but by its very title. While the movie's original title of Looking for Mr. Wonderful would've been an odd title for a Lifetime movie, it would've at least allowed for something of a sense of intrigue.

Thankfully, unlike The Black Widow Killer, Revenge for Daddy doesn't keep its villain's identity hidden for very long, giving it an ever so slight edge over the previously premiered film. But what it can't make up for is the fact that thanks to the title and synopsis, any mystery to be built around what might be motivating the villain in their quest to destroy Lisa's life is left nonexistent. While the motivation is nothing new for regular Lifetime viewers, the fact that the viewer is robbed of even the chance to consider their pool of options is downright insulting.

Going into the film itself, Revenge for Daddy suffers greatly from its pedestrian pacing, with the first act revolving so much around Lisa and Michael's budding relationship that a viewer might think they've accidentally switched to the Hallmark channel. The pacing and mangled mystery combine to make for a rather dull watch as we wait for the reveal we've already been given ahead of time to transpire, with the dramatic climax only able to do so much to make up for the boredom. The pedestrian feel of the plot even seems to spread to the characters; even after Lisa's colleague is murdered and she finds herself fighting to clear her name, no one ever appears upset about what's happened for very long.

To go along with the film's uneven pacing, the cast often seems insecure in their performances--a potential side effect of the lackluster script and bouts of awkward dialogue, given how many of the actors here have delivered solid work elsewhere. Clayton Chitty memorably gets hit by this the worst, with Michael being introduced awkwardly reading through Lisa's dating profile and commenting on it in a dry monotone. Chitty and Sarah Butler do what they can to spark chemistry between Lisa and Michael, but ultimately, the botched script and insane way in which their characters meet (which requires Michael to react to a creepy-appearing situation in an illogical and equally creepy manner to happen) leaves a lot to be desired.

On her own, Butler does her best at overcoming the clunky script to make Lisa a likable heroine. Chitty, unfortunately, doesn't fare as well, with his attempts at making Michael a charismatic love interest falling flat. Most of the supporting cast manages fairly well, though, with the best of the bunch being Robert Palmer Watkins as Lisa's kind and charming boss Ethan. Samantha Cope and Joely Fisher are solid as Lisa's snarky friend Abby and mother Barbara, with the latter managing to overcome her introduction as the typical "Overbearing Mother Obsessed with her Daughter's Love Life" archetype. On the lower half of the cast, however, we have Ashley Doris's moderately stiff portrayal of the ill-fated Nina, and Mercy Malick's near robotic performance as Detective Willis, which serves to exacerbate the aggravation of seeing her character be unnecessarily suspicious and snippy towards Lisa.

WARNING: Spoilers Below

(Nina also sticks out for all the wrong reasons by committing an enhanced variant of one of the most maligned Lifetime tropes that I'd hoped had been retired by the network: a supporting character finding out some distressing information and choosing not to tell the protagonist until later, allowing themselves time to get murdered before they can do so. In Nina's case, this is made worse by her deciding to go clubbing with the same two people she's found incriminating information against rather than pulling Lisa aside to tell her what she found immediately)

The climax, while somewhat tense and containing a solid performance from Eva Hamilton as Bethany finally lets her psycho flag fly, is also hampered by the stale revenge dialogue she's given to work with. Bringing to mind the similarly generic dialogue given to the villain of 2017's The Stalker Club, Bethany's vanilla "I want you all to pay for what happened to me" dialogue was enough to pull me out of an otherwise well-put-together climax.

Spoilers Over

Coming from a production crew familiar with Lifetime and led by two main stars who have given strong performances both on and off the channel, Revenge for Daddy's main undoing being via a poor script and rigid performances is something of a surprise. Add to that the awkward dialogue and marketing that robs the movie a chance at building any sense of intrigue, and you have a lethal combination that makes it hard to get invested in either the story or its characters. Like The Black Widow Killer, Revenge for Daddy is a movie that takes a hit before its even out of the gates and only gets worse from there.

Score: 3 out of 10 admin overrides.