Deadly Sibling Rivalry (2011) Charisma Carpenter, Christa B. Allen, Ben Milliken, K.C. Clyde - Hanelle M. Culpepper Movie Review

Deadly Sibling Rivalry (2011)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Charisma Carpenter in Deadly Sibling Rivalry (2011)

Carpenter's Troublesome Twins

Ever since they were young twins Janna and Callie (Charisma Carpenter - Flirting with Danger) have never got on and when their father died, whilst climbing with Janna, Callie has blamed her for his death. Now many years later they end up in a car accident together and with the police after Callie over the theft of prescription drugs she switches places, pretending to be Janna as the real Janna lies in hospital in a coma. With the police believing that Callie is the one in a coma the real Callie is sure she can pull it off pretending to be her goody two shoes sister. Except Janna's daughter ,Fiona (Christa B. Allen - Hopeless, Romantic), begins to suspect things are not right and when she is sure that it is really her mum in the hospital bed it causes the real Callie to take some desperate measures to try and conceal the truth.

Whilst I have watched a variety of movies featuring identical twins I can't recollect one which has a similar story to "Deadly Sibling Rivalry" which sees a bad twin wanted by the police switching places with her good twin following a car accident. Having said that "Deadly Sibling Rivalry" doesn't really create any surprises either as the bad twin goes to some desperate lengths to conceal the truth, including murder. What that means is that "Deadly Sibling Rivalry" is an entertaining if far fetched movie which unsurprisingly seeing that we are talking a made for TV movie suffers from some usual issues none more so than some gaping plot holes.

Christa B. Allen in Deadly Sibling Rivalry (2011)

In truth I quite enjoyed watching "Deadly Sibling Rivalry" and whilst elements of the story were familiar it still kept me entertained. It isn't so much that it features a strong storyline, in fact there are those numerous gaping plot holes which should have brought things to a close much sooner but there is something entertaining about the desperate choices which Callie makes to keep the truth hidden. Having said that, after various twists, which are all pretty much unbelievable, we get dealt a final twist, a reveal which we never see coming and it is a twist too far which rather than highlighting that Callie has always been a psycho comes across as ridiculous.

But the ridiculousness of the twists and the gaping plot holes are not the only issues as "Deadly Sibling Rivalry" is very much a typical made for TV movie. That means that scenes featuring rock climbing incidents are not overly exciting, the camera work is standard and the acting frequently is shaky. Of course actors will struggle with poorly written characters and there are a few here but it does seem that when ever we have a character that is meant to be bitchy they come across like a pantomime villain. There is also the fact we have Charisma Carpenter in the dual role of Janna and Callie and thankfully the script keeps it to a minimum so that we don't have the characters in the same scene too often. In fact Carpenter is quite effective in both roles as is Christa B. Allen who plays Janna's daughter Fiona even if her character does a lot of stupid stuff.

What this all boils down to is that "Deadly Sibling Rivalry" is a typical made for TV movie thriller and is full of the regular issues from plot holes to poor characters and some dodgy acting. But despite this there is something surprisingly watchable about it even if, with the exception of some ridiculous plot twists, it is relatively predictable.


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