Shielded by the Law
Trainee police officer Toni Stroud (Lori Loughlin - Empty Cradle) takes being a cop seriously which is why she is receiving good reports from her seniors. She also gets along with her fellow cops and so when her colleague Charlie (Greg Evigan - Shadow on the Mesa) shows up at her place after his wife kicked him out she lets him kip on her couch. But whilst Toni is sleeping he enters her room and rapes her, something which she chooses to keep hidden, that is until Charlie is accused of rape by someone else and so reports him to her superiors. Unfortunately for Toni she is only a trainee cop and those who have been in the job a long time stick together, firing her and intimidating her. With things getting too much she takes matters in to the courtroom.
"One of Her Own" is one of those many made for TV movies from the 90s which were inspired by true stories but that brings with it a problem. Now I don't know how true "One of Her Own" is to what really happened but the minute I read a trainee cop is raped by another cop I was pretty sure I knew how this movie would play out with the cops sticking together to protect one of their own. And that is not the only thing which is predictable about the movie as it includes some obvious elements from Toni struggling in her silence after being raped making her husband worried as to what is going on to Charlie creeping around and making her feel uneasy.
Despite this "One of Her Own" is a solid, well typically made TV movie which delivers the drama of the situation be it the rape scene, the subsequent suffering in silence to the intimidations of her former colleagues. For those who get drawn in to this drama the scariness of cops sticking together and intimidating Toni will be effective whilst the likeability and prettiness of Lori Loughlin makes it easy to feel for her. But Loughlin along with some other recognizable names such as Reginald VelJohnson and Martin Sheen only deliver the typical sort of characterisation found in these 90s TV movies. In fact it is Greg Evigan as Charlie who manages to make the most impact due to him making Charlie a cocky and frankly at times evil character.
What this all boils down to is that "One of Her Own" is a typical mid 90s made for TV movie based on a true story. That means it isn't bad but no better than the many other movies which came out at a similar time.
