A Mother's Instinct (2015) Josie Bissett, Sarah Grey, Richard Harmon, Spencer Drever, Vincent Gale Movie Review

A Mother's Instinct (2015)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Josie Bissett in A Mother's Instinct (2015)

A Mother's Prisoner

The Betnners life in a quiet, seemingly perfect little suburb, or at least they did until Seth (Richard Harmon - Icetastrophe) and his mother (Beverley Elliott) moved in, as the oddball Seth not only takes photos of Scarlet Betnner (Sarah Grey - Fatal Friends), as she undresses in her room, but he creeps her out around school. But then one day Scarlet's younger brother, Gus (Spencer Drever), disappears, taken from the home and whilst Scarlet and her mum Norah (Josie Bissett - Paper Angels) tell the police about creepy Seth they have no evidence do anything. It leads to Norah and Scarlet taking matters in to their own hands, kidnapping Seth and holding him prisoner in a cage where Norah sets about torturing him to get him to confess. The question is how far will Norah go and is Seth guilty?

Many say that those who make TV movies do so by copying movies from the big screen and whilst it starts with the "inspired by true events" credit you could be forgiven if you felt that "A Mother's Instinct" is also a big screen copycat movie. Here we have a movie which sees a mother and daughter take matters in to their own hands when a family member is abducted but instead of just investigating they kidnap the creepy kid next door, who they suspect of doing it, and set about torturing a confession out of him. It makes "A Mother's Instinct" sound very similar to the Hugh Jackman movie "Prisoners".

Richard Harmon in A Mother's Instinct (2015)

Now "A Mother's Instinct" is not in the same league as "Prisoners" and whilst it has a relentless nature all of its own, it is at its heart a typical Lifetime movie where the women set about solving a crime because as the title suggests they have an instinct. Yes torturing a young man is not what you usually find in one of these movies but everything about it is; be it the characters or the direction, all of which is solid but unremarkable. The one exception is Richard Harmon whose performance as the creepy Seth as he has a naturalness about him when it comes to being just nasty enough to make you wonder whether he is involved.

What this al boils down to is that "A Mother's Instinct" does have a bit of a different storyline going on as we have a mother and daughter doing something seriously messed up to find a missing child. But the look, the camera work, the pacing and also the characters are all typical Lifetime which sadly makes this another okay but forgettable movie.


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